


The Symptoms of Return

by fardareismai



Series: This Rose is Extra [16]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Roselock, Sherlock Series 3 Spoilers, series 3 re-write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:06:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 35,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3852046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes has returned to London, but it's not so simple as he thought it might be- there are fires to fight both literally and figuratively, but with Rose Tyler at his side, Sherlock can do anything.  Part of the This Rose is Extra series, a RoseLock crossover between Doctor Who and BBC's Sherlock</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Hello again, my dear readers. After what has been far too long, I have another RoseLock story to present to you- the beginning of my re-telling of Season 3.**
> 
> **If you are new to these stories, I do recommend reading This Rose is Extra (the title of the series) in order, beginning with The Wolf of Baskerville.**
> 
> **Additionally, this story will not be updating daily or even weekly. I will be alternating Friday updates of this story with Friday updates of my other story, Universally Acknowledged (a Nine and Rose Pride and Prejudice AU, if anyone is interested).**
> 
> **This is because I cannot right now manage weekly updates of both stories, but I cannot continue to fail to update this series. I have received so many sweet and wonderful notes and questions from so many of you that I wanted to let you know that I am still here, and this series is still alive.**
> 
> **As is ever the case, all of my love, affection, and thanks goes to my beta and buddy WhoLockGal. If you like this pairing (we do!) I recommend her Swaddled!Verse. It's fluffy, angsty, wonderful, and I know you'll love it. I've even been given the great honour of being allowed to contribute to it once, so that's pretty cool too!**
> 
> **Thank you so much for reading and waiting for this series to come back. Every one of you is a star.**

Sherlock ran.

He ran as he had never run before- not when he was chased by the police or training for Torchwood. Not when he was angry and frightened and chased by the demons in his own mind.

He ran as though his life depended on it because it did.

Trees whipped past too fast for even Sherlock to catalogue them. Fallen branches were lept over instinctually. Still the voices gained on him. Still the report from the guns became ever louder.

Overhead the thud of helicopter blades approached and the over-bright searchlight danced across the path in front of him before catching him and moving on. It caught him again a moment later, and a third time, and Sherlock picked up his speed as best he could.

It was inevitable, he knew, as the searchlight caught him again and stayed with him this time. His legs were wearying, his lungs ached, he was bleeding from dozens of small cuts on his arms, face, and torso from where tree branches had torn at cotton and skin as he ran. He'd twisted his ankle some yards back, but had not allowed it to slow him down.

He simply couldn't afford it- couldn't afford to be mortal.

Another volley of shots. Dogs barking. Too close.

Sherlock picked up the pace again, and he knew he had no more speed. No more endurance. No more to give.

"Don't you dare give up, Sherlock Holmes." Between one thunder of his heart and the next he was no longer alone. Running at his side, as she had done before, was Rose. "They're closing in and you can't go any farther, so what do you do?"

"I can't-"

"You can. You don't antagonize them. You let yourself be captured, understood? Captured means a chance of escape. Watch that branch."

Sherlock lept over the fallen branch in the light of the searchlight and stumbled as he landed.

"Come on, still a little farther, please Sherlock." Her voice was nearly desperate and, as ever, he could deny her nothing.

He was up and running again, but he was slowing. The dogs were nearly on him now.

"Name, rank, serial number- the ones you were given," Rose continued, her voice untroubled by the heavy breathing that nearly drowned her out of Sherlock's ears. "They'll try to get more, love, but don't you give it to them. Don't antagonize them though- don't make them hurt you more than they were going to anyway. Please, you have to make it back to me, Sherlock. You have to."

"I will," he choked.

"They're here," she said, and she was gone.

Three men with machine guns surrounded him, and Sherlock fell, gasping and coughing, to his knees, hands over his head. As they shackled and drugged him he thought that it was an indictment of his mental state that his hallucinations of her were becoming clearer and more lucid the longer he was away from her rather than fading as one might expect.

As he slipped under the drug, he saw her again. The smile that had seen him through every type of hell in the last eighteen months.

"You must come back to me, Sherlock."

~?~?~?~?~

Rose sat, twitching nervously with every sound the Zeppelin made. Her fingernails were bit to the quick, but still she found her fingers drifting to her mouth every few minutes.

Mycroft had threatened to shackle her to the seat if she did not comply with staying behind.

"My contacts have made it possible for me to infiltrate. You cannot come. I cannot afford to watch over you. Sherlock would never forgive me if anything happened to you."

Rose had assured him that she would not need babysitting- she was perfectly capable of infiltrating on her own.

Mycroft had then played the dirtiest and most effective card in his hand.

"You would be putting my brother at risk, and I will not allow that."

Rose had stayed, but only after extracting the promise from Mycroft that Sherlock would be brought directly to her unless he was in such dire straits that not taking him to the infirmary would risk his life. In that case, she would be brought to him.

So she waited. She vaguely wished that Mycroft had followed through on his threat to shackle her, however, as it might have saved her nails. She had worried the cuticles on her thumb so badly now that she was bleeding, and still she could not seem to stop.

She shoved herself out of the chair to prowl the perimeter of the room as she had done dozens of times in the hours since Mycroft had left her behind to wait. She would circle the room until she got dizzy, sit until she couldn't stand the stillness, and then circle the room again.

"I'll never forgive you if you don't come back," she whispered to the air.

She had it on good authority that he would be back. That he would be well. That their greatest adventures were yet to be written. She should have been calm.

"Time can be re-written."

The refrain played through her head, battling optimism. The implications of the story of Sherlock Holmes and Rose Tyler not playing out were heavier even than just Rose's broken heart, she knew, but she was human, and the immediate, personal pain was more motivating than the fate of the universe in the abstract.

Rose heard something in the hallway and jumped as she had done 50 times before, only to be disappointed when it turned out to be nothing but a patrolling guard or one of the small crew that piloted the Zeppelin.

This time, however, there were voices.

"Where is she?" This voice was hoarse and sounded quite desperate.

"Calm yourself man," came a crisp, biting voice. "I told you-"

"We're here. You said that she would be here."

Rose opened the door and stepped out into the hallway to find a wild-eyed, long-haired man with Mycroft pressed against the wall, a look of fury and madness on his face.

"If you have lied to me, Mycroft Holmes, I swear to all the gods-"

"Sherlock," Rose said, gently.

The man stepped away from Mycroft and turned to her and she took him in. His hair was long- past his shoulders in tight ringlets with highlights of ginger and blonde that she rarely saw . His face was half covered with a gingery beard, matted in with spit and blood. His eyes were the same peculiar blue-green-gold mix about which she had dreamed for eighteen months, though they were more shuttered than ever she had seen them before. Pain was etched into new lines around his mouth and eyes. His clothes were tattered rags and she could smell the sweat and blood on him from where she stood some two metres away.

"Rose," he whispered. It was a reverent prayer begging the universe for it to be true rather than really believing.

Rose forced herself to smile, even as she felt tears welling up in her eyes at the sight of his pain.

"Blimey, but you're a sight. Thought I told you to stay out of trouble, eh?"

Almost faster than thinking he was there- his arms around her, his mouth on hers in a desperate, hungry, devouring kiss.

His mouth was bruising, as it had never been before. The gingery beard tickled her skin as he plundered her mouth- a pirate, a conqueror, a king. His arms held her in place, allowing her no quarter to move away from him, as though she would.

He kissed her without finesse- feral and wild, not at all the gentle, careful scientist of a lover he had been before. He kissed her as though he would never stop- as though to do so would send the world crashing down around him. He kissed her until lights danced in front of her eyes and Rose knew that he would have to stop kissing her else she would pass out.

Her hands found his shoulders- new muscles under her fingertips, she thought with the small part of her brain not taken up with lust and oxygen-deprivation- and shoved at him.

He ignored her and continued to drive into her mouth with his tongue, pulling her hips against his, where the evidence of his desire dug into her lower abdomen in a delicious and distracting way.

She was drowning in sensation, and very nearly literally drowning, so again she shoved him, this time hard enough to break his grip on her and send him away.

He stumbled back and stared at her, betrayal, shock, and fear written across his face.

"'M not a goldfish, Sherlock, you have to let me breathe," she said, taking several deep breaths, before stepping back up to him, into his space.

He stiffened as she did so, but didn't step away. She ran her fingertips over his face- his high cheekbones and proud brow and up into his long, matted hair.

"You need a haircut, love," she murmured as her fingers were caught up in snags and filth. "No putting it off this time."

She drew her hand down his face, across his beard, and then onto his chest. She noted every time he flinched at a touch of a bruise, and where blood had begun to seep through the cotton of his shirt over cuts.

"You've always been rubbish at making friends," she said, not looking at him, continuing her perusal of his body with her hands. She could feel his ribs under new, lean muscles and knew he hadn't been eating properly.

Finally, she looked at him and could see the wariness in his eyes- as though she might find him wanting.

"Oh Sherlock," she whispered, and she could hear the break even then. "I've missed you so much."

She buried her face against his shoulder, and wrapped her arms around him. When he hissed in a breath as she touched his back, she tried to pull away, only to be pulled closer in by his strong arms- holding her tighter even as he hurt.

Sherlock rested his cheek on the top of her golden head and breathed in the smell of her. It hadn't changed, not in 18 months. She smelled of starlight and rain and jasmine and home. For the first time since he'd last held her, some muscle in him relaxed, and he felt tears come to his eyes.

"Oh my Rose, I missed you too."


	2. Returning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Another day, another opportunity for Mycroft to be annoying.**
> 
> **I want to thank you all for your response to this story. It is, as ever, completely overwhelming and wonderful!**

Mycroft watched their reunion with cool distance. When they had kissed, he had cleared his throat to stop them, but they had given no indication that they noticed in the slightest, so he'd turned away instead.

When Rose had spoken again, he'd turned to see Sherlock regarding her with a wary eye. The look on his face gave Mycroft pause- it was as though his brother had become a wild thing, all instinct, fear, and desperation. He was nearly animalistic in that moment, and it made Mycroft afraid that he had somehow broken his brother with this assignment.

That was, until Rose Tyler went to him willingly. Mycroft watched, with an odd sense of voyeurism as she gentled him like a fractious horse. He watched the wild light in his brother's eyes calm to a more healthy glow and then, when the girl wrapped herself around him, he saw his brother's defensive posture- one that he had not even noticed until it was gone- fall.

"Oh my Rose, I missed you too," Mycroft heard, and the hitch in his voice that preludes tears was only too obvious.

Mycroft wanted to sneer, but he'd watched his brother's torment at the hands of his captors and could not take from him anything that gave him peace at that moment.

Except…

"You need to go to the infirmary, Sherlock," Mycroft said after a long, awkward moment.

Sherlock's eyes were blazing as he lifted them to his brother's, and Mycroft could see his grip around the Tyler woman's waist tighten.

"He's right, someone needs to look your back before it gets infected," Rose said, softly.

Sherlock released his brother from his gaze to look down at Rose and Mycroft could breathe again. This assignment- partially intended to keep his brother away from the woman that Mycroft considered most dangerous to him, partially intended to put his brother's sudden need to be dead to good use- had changed Sherlock quite a bit, and Mycroft feared that his brother was a much more dangerous man.

He hoped that Ms. Tyler could see that as well.

It surprised Mycroft that the thought came, not because he thought that Sherlock's change would drive Ms. Tyler away from him, but because he feared  _for_ her.

When, he wondered, had that happened?

Sherlock looked down at Rose. "You'll come with me?" he asked.

Mycroft winced at the desperation in his brother's voice. He was like a child who needed a hand to hold, not a man who had helped save the universe (apparently), and had spent the last 18 months bringing down some of the most heinous criminals in Europe and Asia.

"Of course I will. And I'll be certain that the nice doctor gives you a lolly after he gives you your shots."

Mycroft pursed his lips, unimpressed with Ms. Tyler's levity- did she not see that his brother's condition was delicate? He would need careful handling, not  _jokes_.

Then he noticed Sherlock's face. Some of the tension had gone and, wonder of wonders, his mouth was very nearly smiling.

"Just so long as it isn't grape," he said.

Rose smiled up at him again. "Nah, I'll be sure to find you a cherry one. Come on then, let's get you cleaned up. You'll feel better once you are." She turned to Mycroft and swept her hand forward. "Lay on, Macduff."

"It's Mycroft," he said sharply.

"Whoever."

~?~?~?~?~

Sherlock lay face-down on the examination table with his eyes closed, two doctors circling him slowly- cleaning and stitching a mass of weeping wounds. He'd been whipped, and then caned over the cuts from the whip.

The doctors stepped around Rose, who sat in a chair, holding Sherlock's hand. They had tried to shoo her away when she had followed him to the examination table, but his near-animalistic growl as they had tried to separate the two of them had convinced the doctors to let her stay.

She knew he wasn't asleep. He'd refused morphine, and though he never moved when one doctor or other started stitching his skin closed, she could see the subtle play of muscles across his face that spoke of him being in pain.

She sighed as another needle made the crease around his mouth deepen in pain for another moment before smoothing to a mask of calm.

"Would you like a cup of tea, Ms. Tyler?"

Rose looked up, blinking quickly and bringing her mind back from wherever it had wandered to to meet Mycroft's cool, grey eyes.

"Yeah, ta," she said, in slight surprise.

Mycroft glanced at his brother. "Is he…?"

"No. He'd wake up if I left even if he was though."

"Right." Mycroft nodded, curtly. "I'll have someone go do that then. You take your tea with milk and without sugar?"

Rose raised her eyebrows, surprised that he knew that. "I do, yeah."

"Very well," Mycroft said, and shuffled out of the infirmary.

"He hates hospitals," Sherlock mumbled, and Rose glanced up to see his eyes opened only a crack. "They make him nervous."

"Nosocomephobia," Rose said, softly. "How very...  _ordinary_."

Sherlock grunted derisively, but Rose continued to watch the door through which Mycroft had left. It was oddly endearing that the man had such a common fear. It made Mycroft Holmes- a figure of such fear and power- feel a bit closer to Violet Holmes' son, Mike.

"You'll need to turn over now, Mr. Holmes," one of the doctors said.

Rose could see the tightening of Sherlock's lips that signaled his displeasure with the idea, but he pushed himself slowly off the exam table to turn over onto his back. When he lay down, pressing into the cuts, bruises, and stitches, he winced.

"You sure you won't take a bit of morphine?" Rose asked, quietly, reclaiming his hand when it sought hers.

Sherlock breathed a laugh. "Not often that people ask that I  _take_ drugs."

Rose gave a weak smile. "You should enjoy it while you can, right?"

He let out a bark of a laugh which made one of the doctors glare at her.

"Keep still, Mr. Holmes."

"I'm serious though, Sherlock. Won't you take something for pain?" Rose asked.

"No," he bit out as the doctor began gently applying antiseptic to a deep gash across his shoulder. "I'll wish for a large whiskey when this is over, but nothing more."

Sherlock's eyes slipped closed again, and Rose watched the physicians work for a long, quiet time. She didn't realize that tears had begun slipping down her cheeks until she felt one fall onto her hand and quickly began wiping them away.

"Ms. Tyler?" The voice made Rose jump and she turned to see Mycroft holding out a mug. "Your tea."

"Thanks," she said, and reached for it.

"May I speak with you… out in the hall?" he asked, holding the mug just out of her reach.

"Er…"

"Sherlock, I must speak to your Ms. Tyler. Would you see your way clear to relinquishing her hand so that I may do so?" Mycroft said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Do what you must." Sherlock's voice was tight with pain, but he kept his eyes closed. "You'll not upset her though."

"I'll be a perfect gentleman, I assure you," Mycroft said, offering his elbow to Rose whose hand was finally free of Sherlock's.

"If you're not, I'll know why," Sherlock said, finally opening his eyes a crack to look daggers at his brother.

"That's quite enough, gentlemen." Rose said, quellingly. She rose, but did not take Mycroft's proffered arm, preferring to walk on her own out into the hall, then turned and faced Mycroft when she had exited the infirmary.

"What do you need?" she asked, rather than giving him the time to lead up to it. "You had twelve hours on the way to Serbia to say whatever it is you wanted to say, but you spent the entire time avoiding me. Now you'd best spit it out quickly."

Mycroft glared, but took his lead from her. "All right then, Ms. Tyler-"

"Rose," she interrupted.

"I beg your pardon?"

"My name is Rose, and you might start using it, Mycroft, as I'm not going anywhere."

Mycroft's eyebrows drew together toward his long nose. How could she have deduced his intent, he wondered, before pushing the thought aside. She couldn't have, it must have been a lucky guess, he thought.

"I need to speak to you about that, actually," he said, taking a step away from the door and looking at Rose to be sure she would follow. When she did, he continued. "My brother's mental state is extremely… delicate just now, and-"

"Can I have my tea?" Rose interrupted.

"What?"

She nodded toward the mug that was still in his hand, used to lead her on as though she were a puppy who would follow a treat.

"My tea. I'd like to drink it before it gets cold and I can tell you're winding up to a long one."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You can beg all you like if you'll give me my tea," Rose said, reaching for it.

Mycroft allowed her to take it as he stared at her in shock.

Rose took a sip. "Go on then, tell me how Sherlock's 'delicate mental state' would be better served by separating him from me and instead staying with… I dunno… you? Some doctor? Because you won't be able to convince me, you should know."

"He needs someone who can help him."

"And why can't that be me?"

"Because after an ordeal like that he may be erratic and even violent, he could hurt you!"

Mycroft's raised voice rang in the silent corridor for a long moment as Rose stared at him in shock.

"You're worried about…  _me_?" she whispered.

"Of course not, but Sherlock would never forgive himself if he harmed you. I am thinking of him."

Rose nodded slowly, but her eyes were shrewd. "Okay then… but I'll tell you this: I'm quite capable of taking care of myself. You needn't worry."

"It isn't just violence. After a trauma like this, he may attempt to fall back into old habits and he can't-"

"He can't be allowed to start using drugs again, yes. I agree with you, Mycroft. He'll need someone to help insure that he's getting the proper amount of sleep, that he's eating, that he's not smoking his lungs to leather. Do you really think I'm unaware or incapable of that?"

Mycroft pursed his lips. She might be right (and he would be keeping an eye out in case she wasn't) but he had an idea that she would be furious about his next revelation, and he was somewhat frightened of her temper. Not that he would ever admit it out loud.

"I did not come for him just because he'd gotten himself into a scrape with the Serbians," he began slowly. "There is a plot on London, and I need Sherlock to investigate."

He braced himself for her ire, and was shocked.

"Good. It'll be easier for him to make the transition if he's got something to work on," Rose said, nodding.

Mycroft blinked at her open-mouthed for a long moment before he took control of himself.

"Yes, naturally. So when he's finished here, I will debrief him on his new mission and-"

"No."

Mycroft stuttered to a halt at her uncompromising interruption.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Sherlock is exhausted and in pain, he will absolutely not be debriefed until he has had food, drink, a bath, and sleep, not necessarily in that order."

Mycroft glared. "You are not a physician, you can't-"

"No, but sometimes someone has to be the Doctor, and I'm telling you that Sherlock will be better and of more use to you given eight hours of sleep. That's still plenty of time for you to debrief him before we get back to London so stop giving me that look. I'm not one of your subordinates that you can glare into submission."

"I'm not-"

"Yes you are," Rose said, interrupting him yet again. "You brought clothes for Sherlock, yeah?"

Mycroft stood silent, refusing to answer for a long moment while Rose stood waiting for him.

"Oh, am I allowed to speak without being interrupted now?" he asked once the silence had stretched long and thin between them.

"Only if you don't say anything particularly stupid," she said with a small smile.

"I have clothes and they are in the room that I have prepared for him along with some toiletries. I have a professional barber aboard who is available to him as well."

Rose raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Think of everything, don't you? Except this: move his things to the room you had me in, please."

Mycroft spluttered. "That would not be appropriate."

Rose raised her eyebrows at him. "The last time I checked, it hadn't been 1950 in quite a few years, even in England. Honestly, Mycroft, you'll have to get over it. Among other things, he's likely to have nightmares, and it will be better if I'm right there rather than across the hall."

Before Mycroft could voice any further objections, one of the doctors emerged from the infirmary.

"Ms. Tyler," he said, sounding frustrated, "he won't sit still. Would you mind coming back?"

Rose looked up at Mycroft. "You really will have to get used to it, Mr. Holmes," she said. "Please put his things in my room, and if you could come up with something fairly quick to eat and a cup of tea with a measure of whiskey and some honey in it, I would very much appreciate it." With that, she turned on her heel to follow the doctor into the infirmary, back to Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A quick note that next week's chapter will be NSFW for sexual content. Unfortunately, this is not like my usual NSFW stuff where skipping the chapter means not missing much but people kissing. It ended up not being terribly simple to separate the saucy stuff from the plot stuff, so I'll work on putting together a SFW version for anyone who prefers to skip the higher-rating-stuff.**


	3. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I hope that everyone has had a wonderful start to their summer. My area got flooded over the holiday, which is always a bit exciting. I'm well, as is my family, but it was a bit of an adventure!**

Rose sat sideways on the bed in the little cabin of the zeppelin that had been assigned to her, listening to the hiss and splash of the shower in the tiny attached bathroom. It was louder than it should have been because the door was open.

Over tea and sandwiches with Mycroft in the galley kitchen, Sherlock had been short-tempered and bitingly sarcastic. When Rose had led him out of the kitchen to her room for a shower and sleep, he had grumbled that he was not a child to be put down for a nap, though he had followed her, docile as a lamb, if not as silent.

But then he had stood in the tiny space of the ensuite bathroom attached to Rose's little chamber and he had gone quite silent for a very long time. Rose had bustled through the room, pretending not to notice his hesitation.

"Rose?" Sherlock's voice was so heartbreakingly uncertain that Rose had to close her eyes for a moment to push back the tears.

"Yeah?" she said, keeping her voice light and cheerful.

For a long time, he was silent and then, in a rush, he said, "I can't shut the door. Is that okay?"

"I don't mind, it's a bit close in there, eh?"

Sherlock grunted assent and Rose, pressed her lips together, her back to the open door of the bathroom.

"And…" Sherlock said, still hesitant and young-sounding, "will you stay here? Please?"

"Of course," she said as though she would never have considered anything else.

And so she sat, listening to the water and wondering what the future held for her and the mad man with the shuttered eyes currently splashing about in her bathroom.

Her musings were interrupted by a knock at the door, so she unfolded herself from the bed to answer it. On the other side was Mycroft's pretty PA who always introduced herself as Anthea, even though it wasn't her real name. She was holding a tea tray and looked nervous, which was more emotion that Rose had ever seen her display. Rose was also somewhat surprised to learn that the girl had rather pretty blue eyes. She'd almost never seen them but the occasional flicker up from her phone before.

"Erm… I thought you might like some more tea. It's an herbal so it won't keep you up or anything," she said, and she was more nervous than Rose had ever seen her.

"Thank you, Anthea," Rose said, taking the tray from her.

"That's not my name," she said, as Rose turned to set the tray the small table in the corner.

Rose turned back to her, wondering what was going on. "You've said that before, yeah. So what is your name then?"

"It's Dalila."

Rose nodded. "Where does Anthea come from then?"

"Greek Mythology. I studied the classics in uni."

"All right then. What can I do for you, Dalila?"

The other woman took a deep breath. "Look, I've been… wondering, I guess… Mr. Holmes, he doesn't really have anyone who works with him on a day-to-day basis. He's got his guards and his contacts and all, but for people who actually work with him, there's me, and that's really it. And then sometimes there's you."

Rose nodded for her to continue.

"And it's a great job, this, honestly. Never had such a good job. But it's a bit like working for a Bond villain, you know?"

Rose grinned. She could just see Mycroft with a white cat and a high-backed chair and a monocle. She'd have to tell John that one- if he ever allowed her to speak with him again.

"There's not really anyone that I can talk to about the job or my boss- my friends think I'm a PA for an accountant. That's what he calls himself sometimes, an accountant."

"He would," Rose muttered. It was precisely Mycroft's dry sense of humour- he accounted for any number of things, but almost none of them were as mundane as pounds and pence.

"So I was wondering, if you were interested, maybe sometime we could grab a pint together, you and me. It'd be nice to have a friend who I could talk about all the mad things in my life with, honestly."

Rose was confused by this sudden desire for camaraderie, but shrugged. "Sure, that could be fun. Sherlock will have to come back publically though, and my name'll have to be cleared before I can do anything like that, but I like going to the pub."

Dalila nodded. "Good. That's good. We'll plan something then, but… later, yeah?"

For the first time, Rose noted that the hiss of the shower had stopped in the little bathroom.

"Yeah, once my name is clear we can plan something if you like."

Dalila nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

"I think Mycroft has come up with a new way to keep an eye on me," Rose said idly as she began preparing a cup of the tea that his PA had brought. "Since I won't come to heel with his normal threats and all."

"Glad you saw that for what it was," Sherlock said. "Anthea is actually her real name."

"Dalila, the woman who discovered the secret of Samson's strength," Rose said. "Your brother doesn't think much of me, does he?" She turned to hand him a cup of tea as he entered the room with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair already curling wetly down his back. "Feel better?"

"I'll feel better once I can get rid of this damnable beard," he said, taking the cup from her. "It itches like you wouldn't believe."

"Mycroft says he has a barber onboard. You could do that immediately, or wait until you've had some sleep. He wants to debrief you on whatever it is that he brought you back for though, so leaving the room means hopping back into work. I bought you time to sleep if you want it though."

"How long do we have before we're back in London?"

Rose glanced at the clock on the wall. "We took off about 45 minutes ago, so a little more than eleven hours."

"Time enough," he said, and setting down his mug.

Almost faster than thinking, he was upon her again. The desperation from before was tempered somewhat, but the hunger was, if anything, sharper even than before. His mouth descended on hers and he pushed her against the wall with the weight of his body, protecting the back of her head with a hand in her soft hair. She gasped as he pushed against her, already hard as iron and separated from her by nothing more than a knotted towel and her clothes.

Sherlock pressed his advantage and dove into her mouth with his tongue. Some voice in the back of his head issued horrified objections as he took her sweet lower lip between his teeth and bit much harder than ever he had done before, but her keening moan silenced it, and the far more prevalent need to stake a claim on this woman who had been his anchor to sanity even in absentia for a year and a half sang with each hitch of her breath.

Her fingers squeezed his shoulders and, remembering her pushing him away in the hallway, he tore his mouth away from hers to allow her to breathe. Instead he trailed open-mouthed kisses down her jaw and neck before he came to the join of her shoulder and neck where he bit, inciting another one of those high, sweet moans that made his blood sing.

"Sherlock," she gasped, "are you-"

He smothered her question with another kiss, swallowing down her moan and sweeping her doubts from her mouth with his tongue. Now was not the time for questions or explanations. Sherlock Holmes could talk for hours, but he had found in recent months that decisive action could save his life.

He had decided, and now was the time for action. If it didn't save his life, it would at least save his soul.

Under her shirt his hands skated, pushing fabric aside as he hungrily sought velvet skin. Over the dips and curves of her stomach and waist his fingers found their goal in her lace-covered breasts. Barely a touch and she was gasping again and Sherlock smiled. A quick flick to the front clasp of her bra and those sweet treasures were tumbling free, warm and soft and a perfect fit for his hands- as she was a perfect fit for him.

He brushed thumbs over nipples already straining for his touch and enjoyed the little whimpers that came from the back of Rose's throat.

Suddenly, cool air on his arse made Sherlock aware that Rose's hands were no longer idle. She had undone his towel and allowed it to drop to the floor and had taken him in hand, stroking her warm palm over him in slow, sure strokes. He tore his mouth away from hers as he gasped at the feeling of her, but it was too much- it had been too long.

Sherlock released her breasts, grabbed her wrists and pinned them over her head against the wall.

"You first," he growled.

"But-" she began, and he cut her off again with a hard, artless kiss and a sharp nip to her lower lip.

"You. First," he repeated, gathering both wrists in one hand to free the other to work at the clasp of her trousers.

He fumbled slightly, and though he had her trousers and knickers shoved to her knees in barely a minute, it felt like an hour before his fingers were at her centre and finding her slickly wet and hotter than an inferno.

Two fingers slid inside her without resistance and her long moan was music sweeter than any he had heard in what felt like an age. He ground the heel of his hand into her clit as he curled his long fingers forward. No slow build, no sweet climb, he needed her to come apart hard and fast so that he could bury himself inside her, finally home.

It had been as long for her as it had been for him and it seemed only moments before she was shouting her completion to the heavens, inner muscles holding his fingers in a vice-like grip.

Sherlock could wait no longer. Though he knew it was right to give her time to calm, he could not and, instead, dropped her wrists and brought one of her legs up around his hip, bringing him into contact with her warm wetness.

The angle was wrong and, though he was able to dip inside, he could not bury himself in her the way he needed. He growled his frustration and she, ever understanding, spun in his arms, bending at the hip and bracing her hands on the wall, presenting herself for him like a gift.

He accepted, pressing himself into her in one smooth move. She was everything he had remembered and yet so much more. As though his mind had painted her in pastels only to have the true tones presented again to his eyes. She was a feast to a starving man, and he consumed.

He drove into her much harder than he would have before the year away. He might find the gentleness of the lover he had been before, but it was unreachable then. Everything was harder, faster, rougher than it had been before, but it sounded to his ears like Rose was not complaining. Against all odds, the sound of her moans was reaching fever pitch again and, even as he crested the wave of his own pleasure, he felt her clench around him in her own peak.

Stars were born and died behind his eyes and she, Rose Tyler, was the brightest of them all. When finally he could think again, he pulled out of her and gathered her into his arms, pulling her over to the bed where he collapsed, pulling her down atop him so that he could fall asleep with the smell and feel of her everywhere.

"I love you," she breathed, almost too low for him to hear and muffled against his chest.

"I love you," he whispered into her hair.

There were things that needed to be said, stories told, explanations given, but Sherlock shoved them away. As he buried his face in her sunlight hair he knew, for the first time in a year and a half, that he would not wake screaming.


	4. Sherlock Holmes Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention last week that there is a wee bit of NSFW content in this week's chapter. For those of you who prefer the SFW versions, the link is here:  
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1adafCjZ7b0fLFMM-lxmIrUSneDneFUzZPYoGiX3qUEs/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> I hope everyone has had a wonderful week, and enjoys today's chapter!

**I fear I forgot to mention yesterday that there's a wee bit of NSFW content in this chapter as well.  The redacted version is available on my profile, if you prefer such things.**

**I hope you're all having a fantastic week!**

* * *

 

Sherlock woke with a gasp, the smell of cordite and blood following him into wakefulness for an instant before reality reasserted itself in the smells of jasmine and sex.

"Rose?" he called the moment he realized that she wasn't in the bed with him any longer. "Rose?" he nearly shouted.

A sound came from the bathroom and, before he thought, Sherlock was on his feet in a defensive position, ready to fight whoever had come to attack him.

Rose opened the door, toothbrush still in her mouth, clad only in her bra and knickers and looked at him silent, brown eyes wide.

Sherlock relaxed his posture after a moment, but he could see that she had recognized that he was ready for an attack. She held up one finger in a gesture that told him to wait for a moment before ducking back into the bathroom and spitting her toothpaste into the sink. After she rinsed her mouth and brush, she returned, crossing the room and wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Sorry, thought you'd sleep a bit longer. Didn't want you to wake up without me, but I needed a shower and all."

He wrapped his arms around her waist and nodded into her hair. He'd have to get used to it- being separated from her again- but it seemed cruel to be parted now that they were finally back together after so long apart. He seemed to constantly want to touch her- her hand, her hair, some part of her that could prove to him that she was real and not a hallucination.

"How long did I sleep?" he asked against her temple.

"Four hours, or thereabouts," she said, nuzzling along his collarbone. "You could sleep a bit more if you wanted."

He shook his head and pulled her hips into his so that she could feel him, hard and ready for her again.

"Don't want to sleep," he murmured into her ear, making her shiver.

She let out a short laugh. "Incorrigible, you are. How'd you ever go a year and a half without…" Suddenly she trailed off, and Sherlock felt her go stiff in his arms.

"What is it?" he asked, pulling back to look down at her. She would not meet his eyes so he chucked a single finger under her chin to tilt her face up to meet her warm, brown eyes. "Rose, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing, it's not important," she said, shaking her head.

"Rose."

"Well I don't know, do I?" she burst out, and her accent slid to the South of London in her frustration. "I don't know if you went without for the last year and half or if you found someone… you were undercover. It might have required…"

Sherlock pulled her against him in a tight hug, stopping her words.

"Never," he whispered into her hair. "Never, never, never, Rose Tyler. I wouldn't. I couldn't. It's you, Rose. It's only been you. Please, please believe me."

"I do. I'm sorry Sherlock. I do believe you," she said into his chest.

"I'll tell you, I will," he said softly. "I'll tell you everything but… not yet. I can't do it yet. But there was no one else. There will never be anyone else. I love you, Rose Tyler, I swear it."

"I know," she said. "I love you too, Sherlock. There was no one for me either. There never will be."

He nodded into her hair, brushing kisses over her temple, down the side of her face, over her eyelids and down to the tip of her nose until he found her lips with his in a kiss that was far sweeter than any they had exchanged so far. He wanted her badly, but the wanting was somewhat curbed now and he thought he could be gentler, sweeter, softer with her. He could show her love, not just wild need.

He allowed his hands to roam over the acres of warm, smooth skin she had on display as he kissed her gently, mapping her mouth with his tongue as he mapped the rest of her with his hands.

He flicked the clasp of her bra open and smiled as she pulled it off before pressing herself against his front again. The feel of her pebbled nipples against his chest was bliss and he growled as his lips sought the impossibly soft skin behind her ear.

"Sherlock," she gasped as one callused thumb ran along the underside of her breast and he grinned against her neck.

"Rose," he growled, moving his hand between them to pinch her nipple and elicit one of those glorious little moans that she was so brilliant at.

She writhed against him, rubbing herself against his hardness maddeningly and, with hardly a thought, Sherlock turned her right around and pushed her onto the bed where she landed with a squeal and a giggle, grinning up at him from her reclined position with her tongue caught between her teeth clad only in her pink knickers.

And those would have to go.

"You are so beautiful," he murmured, kneeling on the bed and peeling them down her legs, enjoying the softness of her skin and the sweet aroma of her arousal. "I thought about you constantly- held conversations with you, dreamed about you, you yelled at me sometimes."

"Sorry," she breathed as he brushed his fingers over the wet curls at the top of her thighs.

"I usually deserved it," he murmured, paying little enough attention to what he was saying now. He slid two fingers deep inside of her, just for the pleasure of it, then withdrew them even as she whimpered to put them into his mouth.

Her lovely, unique flavour danced across his tongue. Had he been offered a last meal any of the nearly dozen times in the past year that he thought he was going to die, he'd have asked for this: Rose Tyler laid before him like a banquet. She was honey-sweet and ocean-salt and addicting as any drug.

He lowered himself atop her- angles and planes to soft curves, loving the way they fit together.

"I missed you, my Rose," he murmured against her shoulder as he adjusted himself to slide into her. As he did so, the only word she seemed able to choke out was his name on a long moan.

It was a song he never wanted to stop hearing.

The pace that Sherlock set in that moment was less demanding than the previous night against the wall, but it was fast and hard- he was still too raw from their separation for anything else yet.

Her cries rose in both pitch and volume, and he swore softly against the skin of her neck. She felt so good- too good. He would lose it soon.

He reached down to find that slippery nub that held the centre of her pleasure and drew circles over it with his fingers. She had to fly before him- simply had to.

And then she was keening his name and he felt her inner muscles clamp around him as she came. Eyes closed tight, face screwed up, and the only picture that he ever wanted to see again. She was a goddess of beauty and hope, his Rose.

Then he was gone, flying over the edge after her into golden glory.

~?~?~?~?~

"How fared London without me?" Sherlock asked as Mycroft's barber plied her scissors over his head.

When Sherlock had woken the next time, Rose was cuddled into his side, blonde hair spread over his chest and her small hand curled around his hip. He might have lain there still and silent until he fell back asleep to the music of her breathing if he hadn't desperately needed to use the loo.

He'd extracted himself from her arms which woke her and by the time he was finished in the bathroom she was out of the bed and dressing again.

Sherlock had sighed. He supposed that they would have to leave the sacred space of the bedroom and re-don the mantle of life. It wasn't so heavy anymore, after hours in her arms.

He'd be pleased to get rid of the beard, anyway.

He'd expected Mycroft to start in on him immediately, but his brother had been unavailable when they'd emerged from their sanctuary, not catching up to them until they'd been sitting in the little galley kitchen over toast and tea for nearly ten minutes.

Once they'd retreated to his office, Sherlock had expected his brother to start in immediately still, but the room remained silent but for the metallic snip of the scissors. Sherlock didn't know what Mycroft was waiting for- he'd practically written the textbook on being enigmatic and even the great detective couldn't always see what his brother didn't want him to see, so he attempted a volley instead.

"The great cesspit writhes even without your assistance," Mycroft bit off.

"It's actually been fairly quiet since the stars came back," Rose objected. She was in a chair in the corner of the office sipping a mug of tea. He no longer had to be in physical contact with her to be able to keep still, but Sherlock did not want her far from him, not even so far as beyond the door. "Think Mike and I are the only ones who missed you."

The woman cutting Sherlock's hair stopped and the room sat in silence for a long, tense moment before Sherlock barked a laugh.

"Has our mother got you calling him Mike as well now?"

"As she is the one who named me, you'd think she could see her way clear to calling me by my name properly," Mycroft grumbled.

"But it makes you so much more approachable," Rose said with a grin.

"Which is why I prefer Mycroft."

"Of course it is. Haven't you got some kind of debrief to go through or are you waiting until we get back to London,  _Mycroft_?"

Sherlock's brother sighed and rolled his eyes. "Yes, we can go over it now. Ms. Tyler if you wouldn't mind-"

"She's staying," Sherlock interrupted in a voice that brooked no objections.

"There is no need-" Mycroft objected.

"Oh for god's sake, Mycroft," Sherlock spat. "There is no reason for her to leave and every reason for her to stay- her security clearance is higher than either of ours so there's nothing you can say she's not allowed to hear, I anticipate I will need her as a consult, and, simply put, I insist that she stay."

"Told you to quit fighting it," Rose murmured, hiding her smile behind her teacup.

Mycroft shot her a glare that she met with a wink and shook his head. He flipped open the file in front of him- he'd expected to have to speak to both of them, but he he had to make his objections clear.

"Your reports have been fairly thorough, except where they were not," Mycroft began, vaguely. "You've been quite busy though, and not just on my assignments."

"Bringing down Moriarty's organization- your all-seeing eye apparently didn't see all. The Serbian side was the last piece of the puzzle."

"You're confident you've brought the whole thing down?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "You called me home, brother-mine. I am reasonably confident, yes, but I am returning to England at your invitation- as I left it."

"Yes, and a 'thank you' might not go amiss."

Sherlock stiffened. "For what?"

"Sherlock," Rose said, warningly.

"For calling you back. For wading in. Fieldwork is not my natural milieu." Mycroft completely ignored Rose.

Sherlock was out of the chair with a speed that belied the grimace of pain on his face. "Wading in?" he asked, leaning on Mycroft's desk and putting his face offensively close to his brother's. "You watched me being beaten to a pulp."

"Mycroft, you promised," Rose cried, and this time both men turned to look at her. "You said you'd get him out as harmlessly as possible. How long?"

"I didn't-" Mycroft spluttered.

"Over an hour," Sherlock spat at his brother. "You enjoyed it."

"I got you out-"

" _I_  got me out. You were wearing captain's stripes, you could have stopped him at any time."

"Stop it, both of you," Rose said, softly. "It does no good now, it's in the past."

Her voice was calm, but her eyes blazed at Mycroft and he felt, somehow, that he'd had his measure taken and been found wanting by this young woman. He'd betrayed her, and she would not soon forgive him.

Rose stood and put her hand on Sherlock's arm to gently guide him back to the barber's seat.

"That's the proper length for his hair," she said to the girl with the scissors. "You can do his beard now, if you like."

The girl nodded silently, and set to work with a pair of clippers on Sherlock's face.

"Is there any other news from London?" Sherlock asked, knowing he would not be able to speak soon.

"President Jones came up for re-election again while the stars were going out. She won by a landslide to a man by the name of Tucker."

Sherlock grunted his comprehension and disinterest.

"The Rift has been quiet. We all feel like the universe is holding it's breath to see if the stars will start going out again. Once everyone feels like they can leave their homes again, things'll pick up in Cardiff," Rose said.

Sherlock grunted again.

"Erm… Tosh and Owen's baby was born a bit after you left. She's lovely, named after Tosh's grandmother, Naoko. Molly's seeing a bloke named Tom. He's a reporter. She seems quite happy. Mickey and Martha got engaged. They're almost stupidly happy- they light up a room every time they're together, it almost hurts to look at them."

Mycroft snorted and Rose glanced at him.

"Your mum and dad are well. Your mum's thinking of remodeling the kitchen and your dad put in a new vegetable patch this year. He managed to grow a total of six tomatoes before he accidentally killed off the plants by over-watering them. Mycroft is taking them to see  _Les Miserables_  in a week or so."

Mycroft looked up at her, sharply. "I am doing nothing of the sort!"

She smiled. "You are. Your mother got tickets and Sherlock is going to be far too busy with whatever it is you brought him back for to take them."

Mycroft narrowed his eyes at her, and though she kept hers wide and guileless, he knew that she was punishing him for breaking her trust and allowing Sherlock to be harmed.

"I shall be far too busy-"

"Tickets are already purchased, Mike. You're quite stuck. Your mother has her heart set on it." Of course she might have been able to talk Violet into taking one of their friends in London, or taken the Holmes' herself, but Rose thought perhaps Mycroft deserved a little discomfort.

She glanced over at Sherlock when the hum of the clippers stopped and watched the girl prepare a cutthroat razor to clean his face.

"Oh, there's the skeleton that has everyone talking," Rose piped up, remembering something she'd glimpsed in the paper as she'd passed the newsagents before she left. "Something about a skeleton behind the wall of someone's house… I didn't read the article. I'm sure it's fascinating."

"It's unimportant," Mycroft said.

"Certainly less-so than Mycroft's terrorists, that's true," Rose agreed.

"I didn't say anything about terrorists," Mycroft snapped, glaring at her suspiciously.

"You just did, actually, so why don't you go ahead and tell us about them so Sherlock can get right to work once we get back to London."

Mycroft caught a slight twitch of the features being shaved that might have indicated that his brother was laughing at him. He at least had the decency to keep silent about it, since Ms. Tyler did not. The elder Holmes grumpily flipped open the file that he'd been fingering the entire time and glanced over it- not that he didn't have the information memorized.

"I have it from reliable sources-" Mycroft began.

"What sources?" Sherlock interrupted.

The woman with the blade in her hand gave a squeak of surprise and pulled it back from his face quickly to avoid cutting him when he spoke.

"It is of no concern. Just know that I trust their judgement on the matter entirely," Mycroft said, quellingly.

"I refuse to accept an assignment on the word of one of your 'sources' if they're not someone in whom I am sure I can put my trust," Sherlock said, just as the girl laid the edge of the blade against his cheek again.

"Mr. Holmes," she said, stepping back from him and crossing her arms.

"Sherlock, shut up or you're going to end up with your throat slashed," Rose said, sharply. "Mycroft, try to avoid being an arse, if you can manage it."

The girl with the blade mouthed a 'thank you' to Rose and Mycroft huffed out a breath.

"Several of my anti-terrorism experts and one or two internal spies-"

"Which-" Sherlock began.

"Shut up," Mycroft, Rose, and the girl with the razor said in unison.

"Their names are in the file, you can look at them when you're done with that," Mycroft said, angrily. "Now please allow me to finish."

Sherlock managed to remain quiet through Mycroft's explanation of several tons of high explosives going missing and word of an attack on Parliament being whispered about in low places. Eventually the girl had finished and wiped the excess soap from his face, and allowed him to sit up. As she vanished out the door, he finally spoke up.

"What of John?"

Mycroft and Rose glanced at each other, frowning.

"Sherlock, I need you to give this your utmost attention-"

"Yes, I will catch your villains and save your government, have no fear, Mycroft. Now tell me how John is doing."

Mycroft and Rose looked at each other again. He shook his head and Rose shrugged.

"He's moved from Baker Street-" Mycroft began, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door.

Rose shook her head and pulled it open to find that Anthea was holding a suit.

"Ah, thank you my dear," Sherlock said, taking the clothes. Shamelessly, he began to strip down.

Mycroft cleared his throat to remind Sherlock of his and Rose's presence, but it made no impact on his younger brother.

"So… as I was saying… Dr. Watson moved from Baker Street-" Mycroft began, uncomfortably.

"Yes, you said that. Why would he do that?"

Again, Mycroft and Rose exchanged a shocked look.

"Well… you were dead, Sherlock," Rose said as though explaining something to a small child. "He couldn't afford that big place by himself-"

"Mrs. Hudson would have given him a break. You kept an eye on her, did you not, Mycroft?"

That man rolled his eyes. "Of course I did, what kind of fool do you take me for? She is too good an ally to lose."

"She's a friend, and a good woman," Rose said, steel in her voice.

"As you like," Mycroft said, dismissively.

"So, obviously, that doesn't explain why John left Baker Street," Sherlock continued, buttoning his shirt.

"As I say, Sherlock, you were gone. The memories of you there… they must have been overwhelming," Rose tried again. "You know, sentiment?"

"But John knows I'm not dead."

The silence in the room stretched thin and sharp as a razor blade.

"He… what?" Rose finally broke it.

"I sent him a message shortly after returning from the Doctor's universe," Sherlock said, dismissively. "John will have understood it. He knows I'm not dead."

"I've seen no evidence that he believes anything but the official story," Mycroft said, brow furrowed.

"Nor I," Rose agreed.

"John is far cleverer than you give him credit for. He'll have been able to hide it from you, but never fear. He knows I'm alive. He may even suspect that I'll be back soon."

Another glance between Rose and Mycroft passed as Sherlock pulled his trousers up and did up the button.

"What… what message did you send, Sherlock?" Rose asked, tentative.

He smiled at her. "You'll love it, but I'd like to have John with me to show you. Once we're back at Baker Street."

"Er… that's fine, sure… but… I think more things may have changed in the past two years than you realize. John is seeing someone now," Rose said, talking as though to a mad person who might fly off the handle at any moment.

"He's always seeing one woman or other. They never last," Sherlock said, waving a hand and reaching for his belt.

"I think this one might," Rose said, not sure if she should tell him what she knew about Mary and John's future or let him learn from Mary in her own time.

She wished she'd thought to ask what Mary would have preferred when they'd last spoken.

"They moved in together six weeks ago," Mycroft said, glancing through another file on his desk.

Sherlock stepped forward and snatched it up to flip through himself. He stopped on a picture and scowled.

"Well we'll have to get rid of that," he said, disdainfully.

Rose glanced over his shoulder to see a CCTV still of John with a moustache.

"Oh, that's new," she said in surprise. "Wait, get rid of it?"

"He looks ancient. I can't be seen wandering around with an old man."

Again Rose frowned. The look aged him a bit, but it was no one's business but his and, possibly, Mary's.

"He's gotten on with his life, you know, Sherlock," Mycroft said.

"What life? I've been away."

Rose blinked. She hadn't seen him like this since Baskerville, or the early days of their friendship.

"I may surprise him- jump out of a cake or something. Where is he going to be tonight?" Sherlock turned toward his brother.

"How should I know?" Mycroft asked.

"You always know."

Mycroft sighed. "He has a dinner reservation in the Marylebone Road. Nice little spot. They have a few bottles of the 2000 Saint-Emilion."

"It's nice," Rose said, "but I prefer the 2001."

Mycroft looked surprised. "I do as well."

"I think I'll just drop by," Sherlock interrupted.

"Sherlock, you can't. He's got a date, you can't just interrupt!" Rose cried.

"You can come with, it'll be lovely."

"Ms. Tyler is the top of Britain's Most Wanted, she absolutely cannot come out in public until you have officially come back," Mycroft said.

"And what if you're not welcome, Sherlock? What if, just say, what if John didn't understand whatever your message was? What if he still thinks you're dead?"

"Of course he doesn't. I assure you, Rose, John is probably expecting me. Now, Mycroft, where is it?"

"Where is what?" Mycroft asked, all innocence.

"You know what."

Another knock on the door coincided with the judder that indicated the beginning of the zeppelin's docking sequence. Sherlock opened the door to find Anthea holding his long, blue, wool coat.

He slipped it on as the balloon came to a halt, flipping up the collar and turning to give Rose a saucy wink.

Sherlock Holmes had returned to London.


	5. Not Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **And here it is, the moment you've all been asking me about. Is John going to forgive them?**
> 
> **We've come to a point in this story where I must remind you that I often steal dialogue from the original which doesn't belong to me. As ever, I make no money from this. I work for love alone!**
> 
> **Please enjoy!**

"You're certain you won't come with me?" Sherlock asked for the fourth time.

"As Mycroft said, I'm a wanted criminal, Sherlock. I have no freedom of movement in the city until you officially return from the dead and my crimes are exonerated."

"You could use a perception filter or some other technology."

Rose shook her head. "Not in a situation like that. Those filters only work if people aren't expecting to see anything. If John were to shout or be surprised, or jump up and hug you-"  _or punch you in the face_ , Rose thought, but didn't say, "-everyone would look and the filter would fault."

"John would want to see you."

Rose just sighed. She was not nearly as convinced of that fact as Sherlock himself seemed to be. He'd flatly refused to tell her what his message to John had been, but he was too pleased with himself for it to have been a simple note explaining the situation, and he had an unfortunate tendency to be a bit too clever and go over the heads of the normal people that surrounded him.

She wished she had some way of contacting Mary and warning her about what was coming, but she didn't have a number for the other woman.

"My parents haven't seen me in as long as John. I have to see them- let them know I'm coming back. I'll be safe at their estate for one night."

Sherlock looked at her sharply. "You're staying there tonight?"

Rose pursed her lips. If she were honest, she did not want to do so. Aside from the independence that she had so ruthlessly gained over the past eight years, there was the fact that, now that they were reunited, she did not want to be away from Sherlock.

It was dangerous for her in the city, however.

"No. If you don't mind, I think I'll stay at Baker Street, if that's where you're going back to."

It wasn't really any more dangerous for her in the city than anywhere else, she told herself.

Sherlock seemed to relax and he nodded. "I will text when I am going to return. John will probably be with me, and we can all greet Mrs. Hudson together."

Rose smiled at the thought of reuniting with Mrs. Hudson. She had much higher hopes about her reunion with her adopted aunt than with John.

The engine cut as Mycroft's driver pulled up to the back of Rose's parents' estate.

"Ms. Tyler?" came the driver's voice.

Rose turned to Sherlock, her eyes serious. "You'll be careful, yes?"

His eyes softened as he looked at her then. "Of course, but I keep telling you, there's nothing to worry about. He knows I'm alive."

Rose pursed her lips, but did not contradict him.

"Okay then, give him my love, and let me know when you're on your way back to Baker Street. I'll meet you there."

Sherlock smiled, gently, and leaned over to kiss her before she exited the car and stood to watch it drive off, dark paint disappearing into the dark mist of the London evening.

~?~?~?~?~

Mary caught her reflection in the cab's rearview mirror and noticed that she had chewed off her lipstick in her nerves. She dug in her purse to find the tube and reapply.

It had been two years since Sherlock Holmes had been thrown from the roof of St. Bart's hospital. Eighteen months since the stars had come back.

Mary knew that he was due back any day, and every day without a word from him or Rose just drew the knot of tension ever tighter in her chest.

The stories had never said how Sherlock and Rose had returned. After the  _Reichenbach Falls_  story, the next one titled  _The Empty Hearse_  had begun simply with the words "Sherlock Holmes had returned from the dead," without further explanation.

Mary had been watching the papers almost self-consciously, trying to find clues that would point to the beginning of the case with the train, but there had been nothing. She was sure it had to be coming soon, but there were no warning signs.

"Oi, lady, you gonna get out or not?" came the irritable voice of the cabbie in front of her.

Mary looked up and realized that they were outside of the restaurant, and if the man's voice were to be believed, they had been for several minutes.

"Right sorry, what do I owe you?"

~?~?~?~?~

The restaurant was a London institution- old as the city itself, dignified, and exclusive. It was the sort of place the people like Mary and John couldn't usually get reservations. When she'd asked about it, John had smiled and told her that the owner owed him a favour.

Someone who didn't know him as well as she did would have missed the way he looked away quickly to hide his pain. Mary knew that the favour was owed Sherlock, but John would cash in on it, knowing that Sherlock would never be able to.

When Mary caught sight of him from across the room- stupid moustache in place, suit impeccable, fidgeting with something in his hands, and muttering to himself as a dark-haired waiter faded into the background- she smiled to herself and resolved that there would be no reminders of Sherlock Holmes or anything else painful that evening. They were there to be happy and have fun, and that was what she was determined that they would do.

He'd been so nervous when he'd asked her to meet him, she'd nearly laughed at him, but he was so very sweet and earnest, and she simply couldn't bring herself to embarrass him. He'd had something on his mind for ages, and Mary hoped that he had a chance to relax tonight.

She crossed the restaurant to him and sat with a bright grin.

"Sorry I'm late, traffic was appalling."

He smiled at her and shook his head, shoving whatever he'd been fiddling with into his pocket.

"Are you okay?" she asked, looking him over. He looked tense.

"Yeah. Yeah. Me? I'm fine," he assured her, though she wasn't sure how assured she felt.

Mary smiled at him in reassurance and, for the first time, John seemed to relax and gave her a true smile in return.

"You said there was something you wanted to ask me," Mary said, raising an eyebrow at him. He'd been very cagey when he'd asked her to come to the restaurant, but he'd muttered something about a question. Mary had an idea what the question might be- she wasn't a fool- but was a bit nervous about finally making it to this point in the story. She'd have to tell him everything soon, including the truth of Sherlock and Rose.

He would be furious.

John's had continued twitching, and his smile had faded as he gathered up his words and his courage, but before he could say anything, he was interrupted by the waiter who appeared at his elbow.

"More wine?" the man asked in a patently false French accent.

Mary rolled her eyes. The snobbery inherent in a restaurant like the one they were in could sometimes take on absurd degrees, but she hadn't expected them to stoop to fake accents.

"I'm fine with water," she said with a smile to John.

"Right…" John said, glancing down at his plate. He took several deep breaths without looking at her, but when he did his eyes were serious. "So… Mary listen. I know it hasn't been long… Er… I know we haven't known each other a very long time…" He took another deep breath and looked slightly lost.

"Go on," Mary encouraged.

"Yeah… well… as you know, these last couple of years haven't been easy for me…"

Mary nodded, though she felt a twinge of guilt at the number of things she'd kept from him- that Sherlock was still alive, that Rose Tyler was innocent and, greatest sin of all, who she, herself was.

"...And meeting you has been the best thing that could have possibly happened."

She grinned. "I agree."

"What?"

"I'm the best thing that could have possibly happened to you," she said, though there was a voice in her head that told her he wouldn't think so once she came clean.

It made John smile though, and she couldn't regret that.

He nodded at his plate, grinning. "Yeah… well… It's just… um… If you'll have me, Mary… If you could see your way to… um…"

He was reaching for his pocket and it was suddenly as though all the air were gone from the room. Mary could feel her face flushing.

"Sir," a badly-accented voice cut its way through the tension between the pair, deflating the moment like a popped balloon. "I think you'll find this vintage exceptionally to your liking. It 'as all the qualities of the old with some of the colour of the new."

Mary put her face in her hands and shook her head. She felt so much more sorry for John than herself and hoped he didn't strangle the bloody waiter. Favour owed or no, she had a feeling the owner of the restaurant might have a thing or two to say about that.

"Like a gaze from a crowd of strangers," the waiter continued, and Mary looked up to roll her eyes where John could see, "one is aware of staring at the face of an old friend."

John shook his head and gave a heavy sigh, finally looking up at the waiter to tell him to leave them alone when he froze.

"Interesting thing, a tuxedo." This time the voice had a public school accent and intonation. Mary glanced up at the tall man with curly dark hair who was looking at John with a peculiar expression. For the first time, she noticed that his moustache was drawn on with eyeliner pencil. "Lends distinction to friends and anonymity to waiters."

John stood suddenly, stumbling against the table as though drunk. The dark-haired man twitched as though expecting a hug, or perhaps a handshake.

"John?" Mary asked.

He shook his head, leaning against the table, taking deep, gulping breaths, not looking at either the man or her.

"What is it? What's going on?" she asked, though she was beginning to get an inkling. Only two people could elicit that sort of reaction from John, and she was nearly certain that this wasn't Rose's style.

"Short version," the man said, still looking at John who finally raised his eyes to the other man's face, "not dead."

"So you're…" Mary said, finally gaining the man's attention. He turned toward her and gave her a small, cheeky smile that was wildly inappropriate to the situation and nodded.

"Oh no," Mary said, shaking her head. Now that it was happening, denial seemed the only proper response.

"Oh yes," he said with a small, slightly apologetic shrug.

"My god…"

"No, not him."

John shot a glare at him that he didn't see.

"So… Rose Tyler?"

There was a small clatter of silver and china as John stiffened again, drawing both of their attention.

"Er… in her defense, she did say this was a terrible idea."

Almost faster than thinking, John lunged.

~?~?~?~?~

Jackie was still crying and stroking Rose's hair, though Pete had finally moved to his own chair to watch the pair of them when her phone rang.

Mickey had told them months ago that she was alright, but in hiding. The difference between knowing and seeing, however, was vast. Jackie had burst into tears to begin with, crying on Rose's shoulder. After 15 minutes of this, however, she'd begun screaming bloody murder at her daughter for scaring her like that.

It had been rather unpleasant, though Rose had not interrupted. Finally, when Jackie wound herself down, the tears had begun again, and Rose had sat beside her mother on the couch and curled into her side like a child.

She pulled the phone from the pocket of her jacket and frowned at the readout. It wasn't Torchwood, Mickey, or Sherlock, the only people who had this number. She wondered if it were Mycroft.

"Tyler," she said, briskly, after accepting the call.

"My god, it worked," came a shocked woman's voice from the other end of the line.

"What worked?" Rose asked, angry. "Who is this, and how did you get this number?"

"It's Mary. Mary Morstan. And… well… it's going to be in one of the stories. I always figured they would have changed it but… I guess not. The number I remember worked."

"Mary?" Rose said, sitting up. Jackie frowned at her, but she shook her head to say she'd explain in a moment. "What's going on?"

"Sherlock needs you. He… surprised us during dinner and John hit him."

"Did he deserve it?"

"No question, but still… he needs you."

"Are you still at the restaurant?"

"No, got kicked out. I'll send you the address of where we're going. Get there as soon as you can, I don't know how long I can keep John from killing him."

"All right, I'm on my way."

Rose was already up and picking up her jacket when she ended the call.

"What's going on?" Jackie cried. "You can't leave! You only just got back!."

Rose looked at her mom and nearly started to cry.

"I'm sorry, Mum, I really am. But Sherlock is back, like I said and… well… he needs me."

Jackie shook her head with a heavy sigh. "Some things never change," she muttered heavily. "Go on then, take care of the genius detective. But you owe us a  _year_ of Sunday dinners.  _Both_ of you."

Rose threw her arms around her mother then. She was right, some things never changed.

"I love you, Mum. And I missed you."

~?~?~?~?~

The cafe was dingy and quiet when Rose entered, but she knew that Mary had chosen it because it was the sort of place where no one asked questions or noticed anything inconvenient.

The bell over the door that announced her entrance had both Sherlock and Mary rising to meet her, but Rose's eyes were only for John, who refused to meet them. She touched Mary's shoulder lightly in greeting, and allowed Sherlock to pull out the chair across from John for her. Still he stared fixedly down at the red-and-white check tablecloth and said nothing.

"Hullo John," she said, quietly.

He shook his head silently, and did not look at her.

For a long time, the four sat silent, Mary, Rose and Sherlock looking at each other, each at a loss for how to proceed.

Finally, Mary spoke. "So… how did you do it?"

Sherlock jumped as though startled out of a thought. "Mmmm? Do what?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "Get thrown…" she glanced at Rose, then at John, and altered what she was going to say. "Fall off the top of St. Bart's and survive."

Sherlock glanced at John before answering. "It was Rose. She saved me." He waited, watching John for a moment before continuing. "She had a-"

John interrupted. "I don't care."

"-device that…. what?" Sherlock said.

"I don't care how you did it. Could have been bloody aliens for all I care." John missed the look that passed between Rose and Mary as he kept his eyes trained away from Rose. "What I want to know is why."

"Why?" Sherlock said, blankly.

"Why." John reiterated.

"I… well… er…" Sherlock stammered. "The stars. Were going out."

John sneered. "And the stars came back because she-" he cocked his head toward Rose without looking at her, "-threw you to your death, eh? I know you think the universe revolves around you, Sherlock, but this is ridiculous."

"He was going to kill you," Rose said, quietly. "Moriarty. You and Mrs. Hudson and Greg. He had snipers trained on you unless Sherlock died."

For the first time, John looked at her and Rose nearly gasped. His were a stranger's eyes in the face of a man she knew and loved.

"And you?"

"He'd have killed me as well if I hadn't killed Sherlock."

"Why?"

"Because he was a maniac," Sherlock said at the same time that Mary said, "because he was mad!"

Both Rose and John gave quelling glances at the other two, then resumed their cold-eyed staring contest.

"There are reasons he wanted me. Reasons that I'll tell you, if you want to know, but not here. Not now."

John looked her up and down, from the top of her head where her roots weren't showing, to her clean, jeans and comfortable trainers.

"You don't look like you've been living in a hole," he said, coldly. "Who's been helping you? Who else knew?"

"Mycroft," Sherlock said, drawing John's cold eyes away from Rose, finally.

John let out an irritated breath but nodded, understanding the necessity.

"Molly Hooper," Rose said, softly. "She had to help us with everything on the day that…" she trailed off and shut her mouth with a click, deciding suddenly not to finish that sentence.

"Torchwood," Sherlock said, and John exploded.

"Torchwood? You told a bunch of nutters who don't realize that aliens don't exist and you didn't tell me?"

"I did tell you, John," Sherlock said, sounding shocked. "As soon as it was safe, I sent you a message?"

"You what?" John and Mary said together.

"About a month after the stars came back… didn't you receive it?" Sherlock asked.

"What message?" John said, calming slightly and frowning at Sherlock.

"A book. A book called The Hound of the Baskerville's. It's over 100 years old, a first edition. I was sure you'd understand."

Rose's eyes were wide. "Where did you get that?"

Sherlock glanced at her. "It was a gift from-"

"When?" she interrupted.

"Right before we landed on the beach."

"I read that book cover to cover," John said, regaining their wavering attention. "There was no message in it."

"The  _book_ was the message, John. We'd been in a parallel universe where that was what you and I were- a work of Victorian fiction. I was sure you'd understand."

"Parallel universe?" John said, softly.

"Yes!" Sherlock said, as though he thought John were finally getting it. "We were saving the multi-verse by-"

But John had lunged across the table at him again. This time, however, Mary and Rose grabbed him before he could get another punch in.

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" John shouted. "Do you think you can just waltz back here with some bullshit cover story and think I'll just welcome you home like the fucking prodigal son? Well you've got another think coming, you bastard!"

With a wrench he pulled his arm from Rose's grasp and practically ran from the cafe into the street where he tried to hail a cab.

"I'll talk to him," Mary said, softly to Rose, who was watching him go.

"I suppose that answers the other question of how much you've told him," Rose murmured.

Mary shrugged apologetically, then glanced back at Sherlock who had resumed his seat looking dejected and lonely.

"I'll take care of John, you take care of him, okay? I'll call you later."

Rose nodded and the two women parted ways.


	6. Welcome Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Happy Fanfiction Friday, everybody. For your pleasure, some fluff and awkwardness!**

Molly Hooper walked into the locker room at the hospital. It was very late. Tom would be irritated that she'd made him ruin dinner again, but the bloody skeleton behind the wall was supposed to be coming in later in the week and she'd had to clear her schedule.

_Sensationalist claptrap_ , she could nearly hear Sherlock say.  _Not like he hasn't been waiting 200 years already, why can't he wait a few more days?_  asked the Rose in her head.

She opened the door of her locker and caught a small movement in the mirror on the door. She turned and there was Sherlock Holmes himself, smiling.

Molly started to grin, until she noted the woman standing just behind Sherlock.

"Rose!" she cried in joy, shoving Sherlock aside to throw her arms around her friend.

~?~?~?~?~

Greg stood beside his car in the underground carpark attached to Scotland Yard, and pulled out a cigarette.

It was unseasonably cold, and he was bloody exhausted, and things just weren't the same. It was days like this that he missed Sherlock. Donovan had moved up quickly in the ranks since the man had died and couldn't cut down her self-esteem any more, but that seemed to be the only positive thing that had happened since the stars had returned.

He glared at the cheap disposable lighter in his pocket. Nearly out of juice, he'd have to pick up a new one with the paper in the morning.

There was a small sense of disgust, even as he lit the cigarette and took the first life-preserving drag. There'd been a time-

"Those things'll kill you," came a voice from the darkness.

Greg though he probably should have been frightened. He probably should have screamed and yet, that voice had been on the surface of his mind for days now, ever since they'd found the damned skeleton.

"Oh, you bastard," he said, turning to face the tall, lean form of Sherlock Holmes.

From behind him a smaller form appeared, bright where the other was dark.

"Greg," she said gently, taking the cigarette from his hand and dropping it to the ground where she crushed it with the toe of her shoe. "You promised."

He grinned. "If you're back to keep me in line, sweetheart, I'll stay on the straight and narrow." He drew his forefinger across his left breast in an "x."

She threw herself into his arms and he hugged her tight. Over her shoulder, he saw Sherlock smiling and knew that London would be alright if these two were back.

~?~?~?~?~

Mrs. Hudson always made a full pot of tea, even though she almost always drank it alone. There was something in her that insisted that she make enough for a guest, though she never had guests anymore.

Her life was quieter, simpler, cleaner, calmer, and infinitely more dull since Sherlock had died.

As though the thought had conjured something, there was a shadow over her kitchen door- curly-haired and tall.

The door swung open and Mrs. Hudson screamed.

The figure in the doorway froze, but the woman behind him didn't. She pushed him aside and ran to Mrs. Hudson, stroking her arms and speaking calmly to her.

"Martha, it's alright. It's us, Martha. We've come back. We've come home."

~?~?~?~?~

Mrs. Holmes was an excellent baker, but there was something soothing about Mrs. Hudson's cakes. They tasted of home.

Rose sipped at her tea and listened to Mrs. Hudson berate Sherlock for not eating enough, leaving, not writing, upsetting John, upsetting her, not calling before he dropped in, keeping his hair too long, and making her worry, all while plying him with cakes, cups of tea made to his preferences, and generally mothering him.

Gods, but she had missed this.

"So he would have shot you and taken Rose hostage if she hadn't pushed me off the side of the building, but she was clever and had worked out a way for me to not… hit the ground. But it had to seem that I was dead, you see? And Mycroft had work for me, so he sent me away, so you see, I couldn't write."

Mrs. Hudson huffed, even as she puttered around her kitchen.

"We're sorry, Mrs. Hudson. And we're sorry we scared you when we came," Rose said.

Mrs. Hudson looked at her and smiled.

"You know, I never really thought you could have done it. Not without a very good reason, anyway."

Rose grinned. "Well, you're right about that. Believe me when I say that if I push him off a roof, he'll have deserved it."

"Somehow I think that if you got it in mind to kill me, they would never find the body," Sherlock said, dryly.

"That's true," Mrs. Hudson said, earnestly.

Rose smiled into her teacup.

"So… Mrs. Hudson… if you're willing to forgive me… us… would you also be able to see your way clear to letting me move back in?" Sherlock asked, gently.

"Letting  _us_  move in," Rose corrected.

"The both of you?" Mrs. Hudson said in shock. "Together?"

"Yes, of course together," Sherlock said, irritable.

"And John is engaged… oh this is so wonderful for all of you!" Mrs. Hudson cried, clapping her hands together.

"John is engaged?" Sherlock asked.

"Not yet, but only because you interrupted him," Rose murmured.

He frowned, as though trying to remember the scene.

"You could use John's old room as a nursery when the time comes," Mrs. Hudson continued, ignoring this conversation. She turned her shrewd gaze on Rose. "You're not, are you? I wouldn't have said so, but it's been awhile since I saw you."

"No," Rose said, firmly.

Sherlock glanced at her and frowned, then shook his head. "So we can move back in?" he asked.

"Oh yes, of course!" Mrs. Hudson cried. "I'm surprised you don't want to find somewhere posher though," she continued, eyeing Rose.

Rose shook her head with a smile. "Sherlock Holmes belongs at 221B Baker Street, and that's a universal constant."

~?~?~?~?~

The dust cloths gave the room an eerie air.

"I couldn't bring myself to pack everything away after the funeral, and John moving out so I just… covered everything in cloths. I won a lottery, so I didn't have to rent it out or anything."

Rose watched Sherlock move through the room like a spectre, listening to Mrs. Hudson's prattle. Seeing him in a place so unchanged, the differences in him were suddenly striking. He was strung tighter, and even more watchful than he had been before. There was a scar that peeked from under his cuff, right to the bottom of his hand that seemed highlighted in this place.

She knew that there were still stories to be told. Just the fact that Mary had been able to call her number from a memory of a book told her how much there was still for them to do, but in that moment she wondered if he still could. Was he still the man she remembered?

Then he picked up the Stradivarius, laid the bow against the strings, and Sherlock Holmes was returned to Baker Street.

~?~?~?~?~

"She let my violin get out of tune," he said, grumpily from the bed as Rose brushed out her hair for the night.

"You would have been even more angry if she'd touched the thing," she responded calmly.

She had no clothes of her own in the Baker Street flat, so she was wearing an old vest of his. It was a bit long on her, but still only barely covered her bottom when she stood. She had, unfortunately, left on her knickers, but she had taken off her bra, and the thin cotton only barely obscured her pink nipples from his gaze.

"You're quite certain you're not pregnant?" he asked suddenly.

Rose turned to him and frowned. "Why do you ask?"

"Yesterday… last night… we didn't use… protection."

Rose thought back and he could see the moment the realization dawned. They hadn't. She'd always insisted on it before, as had he, but things had been so wild and desperate then that it hadn't crossed either of their minds.

She sat hard on the stool and stared at him wide-eyed.

"There are options," he said, quickly. "Most of the pharmacological options must be done within three days. Then there are surgical options. Or…" he stopped for a moment, unable to read her expression, "or would you like to have a child?"

"No!" she cried.

Sherlock blinked at her vehemence. "All right," he said, controlled, "then you won't. We can discuss the options in the morning. We still have time."

She nodded, though she remained stiff, and crossed to join him in the bed. The pair of them shifted so that she was nestled against him, his front to her back, and she reached up to click off his bedside light.

"It's not…" she murmured into the dark after a long, quiet moment, "it's not that I don't want to have  _your_ child. It's that I don't want to have  _any_ child. Not now. Maybe not ever. But it's not you."

Sherlock stroked a hand down her side, and settled it on her hip, comfortingly. "I don't want a child either, Rose."

"I'm pretty sure I'm not… the timing's wrong but… I have to be sure. You get that, right?"

"Of course."

There was another long silence.

"I love you, Sherlock," came the quiet whisper in the dark. "I'm glad to be home."

"Yes," he said, softly, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her tight against him, burying his face in her hair. "Home."


	7. Formailities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **A lovely long chapter for you because you're all so delightful.**
> 
> **For those of you who read my Nine/Rose stuff, anticipate a story sometime this weekend. I think it will be fun.**
> 
> **As it stands, I wish you all a very happy Fanfiction Friday!**

Being proved innocent of a murder whose victim was patently alive and the lead witness for the defense was relatively easy, Rose discovered. It did, however take time.

And paperwork.

The following morning, Rose and Sherlock arrived at Scotland Yard to allow her to turn herself in. Greg had agreed not to say anything after they'd taken their leave of him the previous night, but clever Sally didn't miss the fact that he wasn't nearly as shocked as everyone else in the station.

"You knew," she accused, following him into the office after Rose Tyler was placed in a holding cell.

"Knew what?" Lestrade asked with an affected innocence that didn't fool her for an instant.

"Don't act stupid, sir. You knew he was alive. You knew she didn't do it. Is that why we never found her?"

"I didn't know he was alive, and I didn't know she didn't do it," he said, decisively. "Not until yesterday when they showed up in the car park."

"This car park? You mean to tell me that Great Britain's most wanted criminal was on Scotland Yard property last night and you didn't bring her in?"

"What's she wanted for, Sally? Murder. She showed up with her victim at her side, pretty obviously alive."

"She ran from us," Sally said, stubborn as ever. "You don't run when you're innocent."

"You might if your victim needs to be dead."

Sally frowned at him. "What do you mean by that?"

"Come on, Sally, I know you don't like him, but remember who he is and, more important in this case, who his brother is. You're a detective, you can figure this out."

The infamous Mycroft Holmes, whose orders came from the President herself and seemed to have his fingers in every shadowy pie in Europe. Yes, Sally supposed she could see why Mycroft might have needed an agent who was dead. And that might go a long way toward explaining why Rose Tyler had never been found.

"So why turn herself in?" Sally shot at Greg. "Why not just let the court of public opinion rule in the papers and then buy her way out of a court case? She's got the money."

Greg smiled slightly. "How about you go and ask her that. She's yours to interview."

~?~?~?~?~

Sally watched the Tyler woman through the two-way mirror for several minutes before going in. She hadn't really been sure what to expect, she'd never worked with the woman before. She wasn't a partner to Holmes the way that Watson was. She seemed to be simply, if it was possible, his friend.

She was a few years younger than Donovan herself, but she held herself with the dignity of an older woman. She kept her hands folded. Sally could see that she had bitten her nails all the way down in recent days, though she held herself still now.

Shaking her head, Donovan entered the interrogation room.

Rose looked up as she did and offered a small smile. "Sergeant Donovan?"

"Detective."

Rose's smile grew at that. "Congratulations! That's a big move in only two years, well done you."

Sally raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.

Rose wrinkled her nose. "Sorry… that probably sounded really condescending. I pick up the worst habits from him. Honestly, I'm glad you're doing well. I've heard a lot about you… most of it bad, but I can tell that you're a good cop, and I'm sure you're a fantastic detective."

"I am, yes. So how about we get started, Ms. Tyler." Sally took her seat across from Rose and gave her a long, level look.

"Rose… if you like."

"What?"

"You can call me Rose, but only if you want."

"I think we should probably keep this professional, Ms. Tyler," Donovan said sharply.

Rose nodded her assent. "Of course, Detective."

Sally strained, but she could not pick up the sarcasm she had been expecting. Rose Tyler seemed perfectly willing to accept formality and the rigours of questioning.

"Alright then," Sally said, flipping open her manilla envelope, "let's get this started. You are Rose Tyler of 115471 York Terrace, flat 312, is that correct?"

"Well, that's not my flat anymore, but yes, I am Rose Tyler, and yes, that was my flat until two years ago. These days I'm staying at 221 B Baker Street, but I suppose, until I get things worked out legally, the best place is the Tyler Estate, 1245 East Court."

Sally nodded, and made a note. "Jacqueline and Peter Tyler are your parents?"

"They are."

"Do they know you're back in the city?"

"They do."

"Okay then, why are you here?"

Rose blinked once in surprise. "What?"

"Look, we both know that between your dad and Holmes' brother, you didn't have to turn yourself in. The two of them can control the media around this circus to make it look like you were a helpless victim from the start and once the court of public opinion had ruled, the real court would never have had a chance. Why do it this way?"

"It's the right way to do it. You're right, the media will rule in my favour, but so will the courts." She shrugged. "So why not let it all be legal?"

"It'll take a lot longer."

Rose gave her a half-smile. "Probably not by much. Like you said, between Mr. Holmes and my father, there's a lot of push in the government. I should sit trial fairly quickly."

"Doing it this way means we'll have to arrest you, you know. It'll be at least one night before there can be a bail hearing, possibly two."

Rose nodded again. "Yeah, I figured as much."

Sally frowned at her. "That means you'll have to spend the night in jail," she said, as though perhaps Rose had missed the pertinent point.

"I know. And it's fine."

"And Mr. Tyler and the Misters Holmes will agree with your assessment?"

Rose grinned at that. "Oh, probably not, but my dad knows me too well to try to convince me to do anything else, and if Sherlock and Mycroft haven't figured it out by now, it's well past time that they did."

Against her will, Sally found herself liking Rose. How she could like someone who would so willingly bind herself to Holmes, she wasn't sure, but the young woman was oddly engaging.

"Alright then, fine. We'd best get all of that started." Sally frowned down at her list of questions again, to make sure she hadn't missed one, and hesitated. "Er… one more thing, actually. Can you tell me why you ran?"

Rose shook her head with a wry smile. "I can't, sorry. It's classified. Mr. Holmes will be able to explain the nature of all of that when he comes by, which I'm sure will shortly after Sherlock susses that I'm staying here tonight. Be sure they don't bully Greg, okay? I'm doing this and I'm doing it right and none of that is Greg, yours, or Scotland Yard's fault."

"Not the Yard's fault?" Sally said, surprised. It was her experience that, when Sherlock Holmes was irritated with the way an investigation was going, it was always their fault.

Rose shook her head. "I  _date_ Sherlock, Detective Donovan. I'm not him."

Sally allowed herself a smile. She supposed that was true. Though she still couldn't understand the appeal of the mad detective for this girl, she could understand the appeal of the girl to the mad detective.

"Alright then, let's get you processed," Sally said with a sigh.

Rose stood with dignity, then grinned at the other woman. "Been years since I spent a night in a cell!"

~?~?~?~?~

Rose had, naturally, been correct. Sherlock hadn't approved of her plan to spend the night in jail and had contacted both Pete Tyler and Mycroft to help convince her.

Pete, knowing his daughter as well as he did, simply called the family's PR manager to handle the situation. Mycroft, on the other hand, arrived at the jail less than an hour after Rose had been processed and, despite it being long past visiting hours, insisted that he be allowed to speak with her.

When Rose entered the little conference room where Mycroft sat, she was dressed in violent orange that made her look rather sallow, but she was smiling.

"Has anyone in your life ever told you 'no,' Mycroft?"

"My mother does it with regularity, as do you and my brother. Aside from those people, no."

Rose laughed, and Mycroft mused that she was, perhaps, the only person who laughed at him like that: not as though he  _were_ the joke, but as though the two of them were  _sharing_ a joke together. As though they were friends.

"Why are you doing this, Ms. Ty- Rose? You know that your father and I could simplify things for you. You needn't go through all of this."

"And what then, Mycroft? Rose Tyler will always be the girl that  _may_ have done something wrong. If the police get something up their nose about me or Sherlock some later time, they'll be able to raise suspicions about me in an instant if you or Pete buy me out of this. I have to go through the whole process. I don't mind you speeding it up, but it has to be complete and legal, don't you understand?"

Mycroft sighed. "I thought you were going to keep an eye on Sherlock. He's not stable without you. He needs you." He wanted to bite his tongue for saying it, but it was true.

Rose sighed. "I know. Call John, see if he'll stay with Sherlock tonight. If he won't, his girlfriend Mary will. Tell her it's a favour to me."

"John Watson?"

"Yes, or Mary Morstan."

Mycroft pursed his lips and looked at Rose for a long moment. "What message did he give to Dr. Watson, do you know?"

Rose gave a wry smile and shook her head. "Yeah… it was a book. See… in the other universe, you and John and Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock… you're all fictional characters, written by a pulp novelist and soldier in the late 19th Century. Baskerville? Remember that one? It's one of the most translated novels in the entire world. Irene Adler as well… Well, he got one of the books in the other universe, and brought it back with him. Didn't tell me but… well… he sent it to John thinking it would explain everything."

"I take it it did not?"

"Not in the slightest. John is furious. Doesn't believe the multiverse story any better than you do, but you've at least known Sherlock was alive for the past two years, so it's a bit easier for you to pretend it doesn't infuriate you."

"It doesn't-" he began, objecting by rote, then stopped himself. He had long since realized that this woman was far more than her pretty face and bleached hair would signify.

"It's the truth, you know," she said, quietly. "All of it."

"So you say."

"So I say, and so does Sherlock. You don't trust many people, but you trust him."

Mycroft said nothing, but shook his head. "Goodnight, Ms. Tyler."

She smiled. "Goodnight, Mycroft."

~?~?~?~?~

It hadn't happened to him in two years, this super-spy-esque intrigue. He didn't want it happening now.

He walked by the ringing payphone without a glance, ignored the moving CCTV cameras, and pretended it wasn't happening. Sherlock Holmes was still, so far as John Watson was concerned, dead.

It was easier than accepting the truth: his two best friends had lied to him and played him for a fool for two years.

And so he ignored the signs of Mycroft Holmes wanting to speak to him. He had no doubt that the man would send someone to force him into a van before too many more minutes, but he clung to the illusion while it lasted. He wouldn't play patsy to the Holmes brothers any longer, and he'd be sure to tell Mycroft that as soon as he saw him.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he glanced at the readout, surprised to see, not a "private number" or a cryptic text, but Mary's name.

"Hi, sweetheart," he said, trying to inject a bit of levity that he didn't feel into his voice.

"Hi John." She sounded distracted. "I'm going to be out overnight tonight, and I may be a bit late into work tomorrow. I'll call if it'll be more than an hour."

John frowned. It escaped his notice that the CCTV cameras had stopped following his movements. "What's going on?"

"Had a favour called in by someone I can't refuse. It's fine."

This was not comforting in the slightest. Mary had few friends and no family. Who could exert such a pull on her?

"Who?" he asked. "Janine?" She was the only friend of Mary's that he could name of the top of his head.

"Mmm? Oh no. Rose Tyler."

John stopped, allowing the foot traffic to move around him, completely shocked.

"You… know Rose?"

On the other end of the line, Mary sighed. "Yeah, I do. And I know what you're going to say: that I should have told you, but it was such a sore spot for you, and she was gone and… I just couldn't."

John was speechless for several long moments. "B-But," he stammered, "you'll go to her now?"

"Not her, Sherlock."

"What?"

Another sigh. "Rose is in jail. She turned herself in." John felt an odd sense of vindication, tinged with the smallest possible amount of worry.

"Good," he said, shoving the worry aside. "I hope she rots there."

"She won't," Mary said, unconcerned. "She's wanted for murder, and her victim is alive. She'll be out by tomorrow, knowing Mycroft and Pete Tyler. But Sherlock is going to be alone tonight and she and Mycroft think he needs someone to keep an eye on him. They couldn't reach you, so they asked me."

John glanced up at the nearest CCTV camera which was resolutely turned away from him like a friend giving him the cold shoulder.

"How did she get ahold of you if she's in jail?"

"She didn't, Mycroft did."

Alarms went off in John's head. "Did he kidnap you? Are you alright?"

"What?" Mary said, stunned. "No, he texted. What are you on about?"

John glared at a pay phone as he passed it, daring it to ring at him. "Nothing. Just an old joke between me and Mycroft. So you're babysitting Sherlock tonight?"

"Yup. Should be fun. Think I should bring Cluedo?"

"No. Don't let Sherlock Holmes within a mile of Cluedo when he's in a temper. What does Rose Tyler have over you that you'd do this? You don't even know Sherlock."

"I don't, but you do. And Rose saved my life once."

"What?"

"It's a long story, and I'll tell you soon, but for now I've got to get out to Baker Street. I love you, and I'll see you at work tomorrow."

John looked down at his phone and wondered what had happened to his neat, ordered world? Then he remembered- Sherlock Holmes had re-entered it.

~?~?~?~?~

Mary knocked on the door of 221 with a deep thrill. When it was opened by an older woman wearing an apron and looking just like she'd always expected, Mary couldn't help a grin.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked, keeping the door half closed.

"Yes, I'm here for Sherlock Holmes. Is he in?"

"Oh, are you a client? Already?"

"Er… no. I'm John's girlfriend, Mary. Rose asked me to keep an eye on him tonight because she's… not available."

"Oh thank goodness! I thought she was mad turning herself into the police, but she insisted. 'What will Sherlock do without you?' I asked her, but she wouldn't budge. Go on up, it's the door on the first landing. He's smoking his lungs to leather, no doubt, and I'll have to clean up whatever he decides to break because he's being a child. It's lovely to meet you," Mrs. Hudson added as an afterthought, looking Mary over. "You're as pretty as John said."

Mary grinned in deep pleasure. "Thank you. And you're as nice as he's always told me."

Mrs. Hudson gave a nearly girlish giggle and left her at the top of the stairs.

Mary opened the door to flat B and was hit with the smell of cigarette smoke. It wasn't as bad as it could be, it was coming from a man who was standing in front of an open window, blowing the smoke out, but she knew Rose would be irritated regardless.

The man didn't turn around, or speak, just smoked the cigarette down to the filter, flicked it out the window, and drew another from the crumpled pack in his left hand.

"Nope," Mary said, crossing the room in three quick strides and removing the disgusting item from his hand. "Rose will kill me if you give yourself asthma tonight. Kill yourself when she's around to stop you, alright?"

Instead of speaking, the man simply glared at her. Mary met him stare-for-stare.

In her own time, scholars debated the apparent inconsistency of Dr. Watson's descriptions of Sherlock Holmes' eyes. Sometimes he called them green, sometimes blue, sometimes grey, and sometimes even gold. Mary now found that it was because they were all these colours, and capable of the most intimidating stare she'd seen on a human.

Mary Morstan had glared down fouler beasts than Sherlock Holmes, however, and was not daunted.

"You're John's girlfriend. Or is it fiancee now?" He glanced down at her bare left hand even as he asked the question.

"Girlfriend still, thanks to you. I'm sure he'll get his nerve up to ask again soon though."

"Is he with you?"

Mary felt a little guilty. There was an odd note of hope in his voice when he'd asked, but she was forced to disappoint.

"No, just me."

Mary, with her Time Agency training could see the tightening of his mouth as she said it.

"And what are  _you_  doing here, precisely?"

"Rose asked me to come."

"Rose…" he said, tasting the name for a moment, and looking her over with that disconcerting x-ray gaze. "Rose… for whom you knew a number which is hardly common knowledge last night."

Mary said nothing, even as he took a step closer to her, crowding her, trying to intimidate her. He smelled of cigarettes and dust, and Mary stood her ground.

"You're combat-trained," he said, moving around her, frowning. "A linguist. A nurse. And… out of your time," this last was said with a breath of shock.

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Your shoes."

Mary glanced down at the boots she had pulled on without thinking. Her Time Agency boots but… how could he know?

"They are very similar to the technology that Torchwood uses on theirs, but not identical. I know everyone who remains at Torchwood, so you're not from there… There is no way for you to have known Rose's number unless you'd been told at some later date."

Nearly quicker than thinking, Mary found herself backed against the nearest wall, Sherlock looming over her, caging her in, unable to get away.

"Who are you?" he growled into her face.

"Mary Morstan."

"Hardly. Who are you and what are you doing here? What do you want with Rose and John?"

"John trusts me," she said, suddenly furious a the implication that she might hurt John.

"He's a trusting man. And he doesn't even know that you're not trustworthy, does he?"

" _Rose_  trusts me."

That brought him up short. Where Rose was also a trusting soul, she'd had enough tastes of the universe to know what Mary probably was, and to know whether that thing was worth trusting.

"I won't let you hurt her."

"I won't. I'd never. She saved my life…"

"You're a liar."

"So are you."

After a long moment during which the two stared at each other in cool appraisal, Sherlock stepped away, allowing Mary freedom of movement.

Mary took a deep breath and watched him as he moved. He plucked the bow to his violin from where it sat leaning against the stand and used it to indicate a hard kitchen chair set in the middle of the room, facing a matched set of armchairs.

"Sit."

It was not a voice that brooked argument, and since he appeared to be planning on taking the right-hand armchair facing her rather than continuing to loom over her, Mary did not argue.

Sherlock settled himself back, eyes half-closed and violin bow held in loosely steepled hands. He sat in silence for several long moments before he opened his eyes and gave her that unsettling, piercing glare.

"So tell me, Mary Morstan," he spoke her name with clear skepticism, "who are you?"

~?~?~?~?~

"John doesn't know, not yet."

For over an hour, Sherlock had listened, questioned, interrupted, argued, listened again, and finally-  _finally_ \- believed. He would ask Rose when next he saw her, but for now, he thought that he had as much truth from Mary as he could have gotten.

"Will I never be free of fiction?" he asked.

"I beg your pardon?"

Sherlock shook his head and rose to turn on the lights. He had allowed the room to grow dimmer and dimmer as he questioned her, not wanting to interrupt the flow of the interrogation, but night had fallen on the city in earnest, and the room, while not pitch black, was not-well-lit by the streetlights filtering in through the still-open window.

"You must tell him," Sherlock said, and now his voice was not longer accusatory, it simply stated a fact.

"He'll hate me."

Sherlock shrugged and nodded, but he was sympathetic. "I know. Rose knows even better, doubtless. It doesn't change the fact."

Mary sighed. "I know."

"I've one more question for you, if you don't mind."

Mary glanced up, and saw that his face had changed subtly. No longer furious and cold, he seemed almost young. Almost desperate.

"Yes?"

"Tell me… how is John?"


	8. The Deduction Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Some of you have heard my opinions (mostly negative) about Season 3 of Sherlock. Those do not stop me thinking that there were scenes and conversations that were way too entertaining to skip, and this chapter contains one of them.**
> 
> **Hope you're all having a lovely summer and keeping as cool as possible!**
> 
> * * *

For two weeks, Rose spent her days in the company of the legal system, and her evenings in the company of Sherlock Holmes.

At Scotland Yard and at the office of the barrister her father had hired, Rose answered endless questions. Sometimes Mycroft was there to stand surety of those things that were classified. Sometimes Pete was. On one memorable day, the barrister requested that Sherlock come to rehearse his responses to questions as the lead witness.

He was never invited back.

When she arrived back at Baker Street in the evenings, Sherlock was always there. This was, in itself, unusual. Generally, when Sherlock was in London, even in the rare event that he wasn't on a case, he was as bad as the Doctor at going off on a wander without letting anyone know. He tended to visit seedy bars and peculiar entertainments for no reason other than to see what he might learn from them.

What was more unusual was that he never had a foul-smelling experiment running in the kitchen, he was never playing discordant music on his violin, and he was never still in his dressing-gown staring blackly into the middle-distance.

He would meet her with good cheer, offer her tea or a drink, feed her, and spend the evening talking with her, or watching television, or reading beside her on the sofa. He didn't even lose his temper with her.

The normality of the situation was making Rose question her own sanity. The whole thing was downright domestic. She thought he must be working on a case while she was caught up in what red tape Mycroft hadn't been able to shear through entirely, or else he was going mad and managing to keep it quiet.

She was proved right around Wednesday of the second week when she returned to Baker Street after a long day in the dusty offices of Pete's barrister to find Mrs. Hudson hovering outside the door of their flat, dithering.

"Thank God you're here," she whispered, seeing Rose come in the front door. "They've been at it for hours."

"Who has?" Rose asked, taking the stairs two at a time. "Has John come?"

She'd been hoping that John would stop by sometime while she was away to see Sherlock. He wasn't ready to see or forgive her, she knew, but Sherlock had actually tried to do right by him.

"No, it's Mr. Holmes," Mrs. Hudson whispered, wringing her hands.

"Mycroft? What's he doing here? And what are they doing?"

"Playing board games."

Rose let out a long sigh. Unlike the literary version, the Sherlock Holmes she knew had no time or patience for chess or any game of the sort. When he had a deck of cards, he tended to throw them. When he had a chessboard in front of him, he tended to use the pieces to explain some matter of strategy. When he did play board games, he usually did so as an attempt to get under his opponent's skin. There was a reason the Cluedo wasn't allowed in the house anymore.

"Damn," Rose muttered, "and I think we're out of wine. It may require whiskey anyway though."

"I have a bottle," Mrs. Hudson offered.

"I'll pay you back for it," Rose said, pathetically grateful.

Mrs. Hudson shook her head. "Don't worry about it, dear. I know what they can be like. Also, I have a feeling rent will finally start being paid on time now. I'll be back in a minute."

When Mrs. Hudson was gone, Rose turned back toward the door and took one more deep, steadying breath before entering.

"That's what secret terrorist organizations do, isn't it? It's their version of golf," Sherlock was saying as she entered the sitting room.

"An agent gave her life to tell us that," Mycroft said.

Sherlock opened his mouth to answer, but Rose interrupted before he could say something rude and foolish.

"Who? Did they have family?"

Both Holmes brothers stood upon realizing that she was in the room. Mycroft from old-fashioned manners, Sherlock from surprise and apparent pleasure at her arrival.

"Ms. Tyler," Mycroft said, inclining his head toward her. "She did have family, yes. They have been informed and will be properly compensated."

"Did you send flowers?" Rose asked.

Mycroft frowned. "Why?"

"Sympathy, Mycroft. It's a thing that people do."

He continued to stare in incomprehension. "I suppose I can see if Anthea has done so…" he said, uncertainly.

"Ah yes, Dalila," Rose murmured as Sherlock crossed the room to her, bent down, and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth.

She knew the move was intended more to irritate Mycroft than to greet her, but she couldn't help enjoying the sensation.

"You're back early," he said, softly, his forehead gently touching hers. "I'd have cleared everything away had I known you'd be back."

Rose stepped back. "Your brother and his terrorists are not something to be 'cleared away,' Sherlock." She glanced at him, noticing for the first time that he was still in his dressing gown. "Though I might have appreciated you bothering to get dressed by 3 in the afternoon."

"I should have been informed that you were on your way," Mycroft said, frowning at his phone. "I sent a man to pick you up from the courthouse."

"Ewan?" Rose said, innocently. "Oh yes, I'm afraid I distracted him. His daughter turns 13 in a few weeks and he's getting her a dog, and we got talking about the benefits of going to a breeder or the shelter. I think he'll take her to the shelter."

Mycroft rolled his eyes. "You're nearly finished with the intricacies of law and order, however?"

Rose nodded. "A bit more paperwork, and then Sherlock will have to give a statement to the police and probably the press. Mr. Richardson figures we'll be in court by next Wednesday. I'm going to make a pot of coffee, the bilge at his office just won't cut it. How about you two return to your game of.." she glanced at the table and shook her head. "Operation," she sighed.

Operation meant that Mycroft had made some comment about Sherlock returning to drugs, and Sherlock had felt the need to prove that he was steady.

"Can I offer you a drink, Mycroft?" she asked from the door of the kitchen. "Coffee? Tea? I think we have a decent scotch in the back of one of the cabinets that Mrs. Hudson was keeping up here, and she's bringing me a bottle of wine."

"Coffee would be fine, thank you," he said, resuming his seat and picking up the tweezers to take his turn at the board. "I've given the President my personal assurance that you are on the case."

"I  _am_  on the case," Sherlock assured him, bored.

Rose smiled as she measured out beans into the grinder. While she was somewhat worried about the fact that he wasn't sharing his crime-solving activities with her, she was more pleased that he was doing something with his days rather than languishing and hiding it from her.

The game board let out a loud buzz.

"Bugger," Mycroft said, dropping the tweezers with a clatter.

"Oopsie," said Sherlock, sarcastically. "Can't handle a broken heart. How very telling."

Rose rolled her eyes as she turned on the coffee grinder. Sherlock had no room in the world to criticize anyone's emotional unavailability, but if he was more emotionally competent than anyone in the world, it might very well be Mycroft Holmes.

"I used to think I was an idiot." Sherlock's voice was more full of venom than Rose had heard it in a long time once she turned off the grinder. No one could bring the petulant child out of him nearly so well as his brother. Mycroft knew Sherlock's buttons, and Sherlock knew his.

Rose reached up to the top cupboard and drew down the whiskey. She poured two fingers into Sherlock's coffee mug, then filled the coffee maker with beans and water, and sat back to listen, ready to jump between the two man-children, if the need arose.

"Both of us thought you were an idiot, Sherlock. We had nothing else to go on 'til we met other children."

Sherlock remained silent, and Rose wondered what was going through his head- she knew he'd been a lonely child, his years of rivalry with his brother and only companion shaping his view of all relationships.

"What were they thinking?" Mycroft asked, sounding disgusted.

"Probably something about trying to make friends?" Sherlock offered in a deceptively conciliatory manner.

"Ugh, friends." For a long moment, there was silence from the living room, and Rose turned to take the now-brewed coffee off the heat and pour it into the three mugs, one with whiskey and two without. "Of course, you go in for that sort of thing now," Mycroft said, and Rose could hear the sneaky insinuation in his tone.

"And you don't," Sherlock said, a statement of fact. After a moment, however, he spoke again. "Ever?"

"If  _you_ seem slow to me, Sherlock, can you imagine what ordinary people are like? I'm living in a world of goldfish."

Rose smiled as she finished loading the coffee tray with cream and sugar and carried it into the living room.

"How wonderfully flattering," Rose said, giving Mycroft an arch look. "Perhaps you should stop going to the aquarium for social calls. I've heard the pub is a good place to meet people. Possibly the library. You could join a book club." She laid the tray over the Operation board, obscuring the pieces, and handed Sherlock his doctored cup.

"I suppose you have found a few people of a slightly higher order," Mycroft said, grudgingly as Rose handed him a cup before taking her own and perching herself on the arm of Sherlock's chair, where he rested his hand on her knee.

"High praise," Rose said with a grin. "I think I'd like to be a duck."

Sherlock smiled into his coffee but Mycroft blinked at her, confused. "I beg your pardon?"

"You did say only slightly higher order, so I suppose I can't aspire to be a dog or a horse or even a pig, but I like ducks. They're far less vicious than geese."

Mycroft turned to Sherlock only to find his shoulders shaking in silent laughter. He turned back to Rose who was grinning, eyes sparkling with mischief and humour, and sighed.

"Besides," Rose said, cutting off whatever Mycroft was about to say, "Sherlock has been gone for two years."

"Yes?" Mycroft asked.

"So you didn't have him to pester… just wondered who you'd talked to."

"I checked in with you and my parents once a week," Mycroft said, as though this explained everything.

"And?"

Mycroft gave her a blank look. "And what?"

"You talked with me, a person you can barely stand, for less than five minutes a week for 18 months. That's all the social interaction you had?"

Mycroft frowned. "What are you saying."

Rose shrugged. "Just sounds lonely is all."

Mycroft stared at her, mouth agape for a moment, then he turned to Sherlock who had stopped laughing, but was giving him a long, searching look from over the top of his coffee cup.

"You didn't get yourself a… goldfish?" Sherlock asked, arching a brow.

Mycroft glanced quickly between Sherlock and Rose and pushed himself out of the chair to cross to the fireplace. "Change the subject," he said, glaring at Rose. "Now."

Rose opened her mouth to speak, but Sherlock cut her off. "Rest assured, Mycroft. Whatever this underground network of yours is up to, the secret will reside in something seemingly insignificant or bizarre."

"Yoo-hoo," came a call from the stairs. "Rose?"

"Speaking of which," Mycroft muttered under his breath as Rose went to meet Mrs. Hudson at the door. It wasn't far enough under, for Rose turned to glare at him.

"Behave," she scolded, then turned her sunny smile to Mrs. Hudson, who handed her a chilled bottle of white wine. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Hudson, dear."

"Anything to help. You know how glad I am to have you here." She beamed into the room. "And to have Sherlock back. It's just so wonderful to see him there in his chair. And having you two here together, and Sherlock settling down… it's just so wonderful, don't you agree, Mr. Holmes?"

"I can scarcely contain myself," Mycroft said, dryly.

"Really he can," Rose said, smiling. "Cup of coffee?"

"Thank you, dear, I'm alright. You'll want to put that wine on ice shortly though," she tossed this last over her shoulder as she left the flat, waving a hand toward the kitchen.

Rose went into the kitchen to stash the wine in the refrigerator and from the kitchen she heard Sherlock get up out of his chair and cross the room.

"Let's play a different game."

"Why are we playing games?" Mycroft asked, with a heavy sigh.

"When are you two ever not playing games?" Rose muttered to herself, shoving aside a bowl of leftover vegetable soup and a ziploc bag containing what appeared to be a lump of green Play-Doh but was, in fact, a scraping off an alien ship that had landed in Hyde Park two days ago, which Mickey had dropped off for her examination the previous day.

"Well, London's terror alert has been raised to Critical." Rose raised her eyebrows- she hadn't heard that yet. "I'm just passing the time."

Rose shoved the wine into the hole she'd made in the bedlam of the fridge and hurried out as Sherlock held up a silly-looking blue knit hat. She knew he was trying to bait Mycroft, and she felt the need to get between the two men before things came to blows.

"Let's play deductions," Sherlock said, with a smug smile. "Client left this while I was out, what do you reckon?"

Rose looked at the hat and frowned. She was about to open her mouth when Sherlock sent her a quick, sharp look, and she snapped it shut. Mycroft didn't seem to notice, irritated with Sherlock as he was, which was (Rose knew) precisely Sherlock's intent.

"I'm busy," he said.

"Oh go on," Sherlock said with a smile. "It's been an age."

Rose blinked in surprise as something she hadn't noticed came to light. Sherlock was as lonely as Mycroft, and the realization nearly sent her staggering. Sherlock was not, by nature, a social man, but in the four years she'd known him, she'd seen that he did better when he wasn't alone, and he had been for a year and a half.

It was a bit of a wrench to realize that she wasn't enough for him, even when she'd known that he would always need John.

Rose sighed and settled in to watch the show. Two of the most impressive minds in Europe fencing together was always entertaining on one level or another, and she knew she needed to be there in case one of them decided to savage the other with the blade of his mind.

She wouldn't lay odds on who would come out alive if they did.

"Some women have large heads," Mycroft was saying, and Rose noted that he glanced at her as he said it. She wondered if it was simply because she was the only woman in the room, or because he thought she had a large head.

"Some women have short hair," Sherlock said, then gave an evil smile. "Not that you've spoken to a woman with short hair. Or a woman."

"What does that make me then," Rose muttered, knowing neither man was listening, "chopped liver?"

"This is a chullo - the classic headgear of the Andes," Mycroft said, throwing the hat across to Sherlock, "and it's made of alpaca."

"Nope," Sherlock said, over-emphasizing the final plosive as Rose herself often did.

"No?"

"Icelandic sheep's wool. Similar but very distinctive if you know what you're looking for. I've written a blog on the varying tensile strengths of different natural fibres."

"I'm sure there's a crying need for that," Rose muttered again. She wondered if the men would notice if she went to pop popcorn. She somehow doubted it.

"Brief sniff of the offending bobble tells us everything we need to know about the state of his breath," Sherlock was saying. "Brilliant."

"Elementary," Mycroft said with a smug smile. Rose nearly laughed, but pressed her lips together to avoid it.

"But you've missed his isolation."

Mycroft frowned at the hat. "I don't see it."

"Plain as day."

"Where?"

"There for all to see."

Rose was ready to jump between the pair. Sherlock had unsheathed his claws, and it wasn't a fair fight this time.

"Tell me." Mycroft was getting frustrated.

"Plain as the nose on your…"

" _Tell_  me!"

Sherlock turned to face his brother, and put the hat on his own head. "Well anyone who wears a hat as stupid as this isn't in the habit of hanging around other people, is he?"

Rose sighed. It wasn't what she'd expected, but it wasn't as bad as she'd feared.

"Maybe he doesn't mind being different. He doesn't necessarily have to be isolated."

"Exactly."

"I'm sorry?"

"He's different. So what? Why would he mind? Why would anyone mind?"

Rose narrowed her eyes at Sherlock. She'd been wrong, he  _was_ baiting Mycroft.

"I'm not  _lonely_ , Sherlock!"

"How would you know?"

Rose stood. "That's enough, both of you," she said, softly. For the first time, both Holmes brothers seemed to notice that she was there. "Thank you for coming by, Mycroft, but I think Sherlock should get back to work on your case, don't you?"

Mycroft was pale and furious, but he rallied and nodded stiffly. "Until next time, my dear" he said to Rose. "Sherlock."

Once he was gone, Sherlock turned to Rose in surprise. "He likes you."

"He tolerates me because you push him to the point of murder. Honestly, don't you know when to stop?"

Sherlock shrugged and removed the hat, tossing it back onto his desk.

"You cheated too. I saw the bloke come in wearing that. You met him. You weren't deducing anything."

Sherlock smiled. "Mycroft needs to be reminded that he's human sometimes."

Rose sighed. "Takes one to know one, I suppose."

"Beg pardon?"

"You, Sherlock Holmes, need to talk to John."

Sherlock went still at that. His back was toward her, looking out the window, but she could feel the tension emanating from him from across the room.

"Why didn't you tell me about Mary?"

Rose had wondered if this was coming. When she'd returned from her night in jail, he had said that he'd talked to Mary and knew everything, and the subject had dropped. He'd asked her nothing about the story or why she'd kept it from him, but she'd known that he hadn't forgotten.

"It wasn't my story to tell."

"I can't see John and not tell him. You know that."

"I know nothing of the sort. You keep more secrets than anyone I know, Sherlock!"

Sherlock turned to her, surprised. "No I don't, not from you and John."

Rose blinked. It hadn't occurred to her before but, now that he mentioned it, unless it was of vital importance (saving John's life and saving the universe) he didn't. He used to, but he didn't any longer.

"Okay," she said, slowly. "Okay, you're right but… would it have to be the first thing out of your mouth? Mary's secret? Couldn't you just… talk first?"

"About what I've been doing for the last two years?"

Rose winced, remembering John's response when Sherlock had tried to explain. "Well no, maybe not. But what about a case? You're obviously working again… get him involved!"

Sherlock shook his head. "He wants nothing to do with me."

"That's not true! It's  _me_ he wants nothing to do with, if I weren't here…"

"Stop," he commanded, finally turning to meet her eyes with his own sharp blue ones. "Whatever you think you're about to say, don't. You are my partner, Rose in all senses of the word. Until John is ready to accept us together again, he's not ready to accept any of it."

Rose sighed. "It's up to you, I suppose. But you need someone to keep an eye on you."


	9. Normal is as Normal Does

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Some of you may have noticed that I have not answered your reviews from two weeks ago. This is largely because of who I am as a person, and nothing to do with you. I still love you all and love your reviews and want to hug and cuddle every last one of you, I just seem completely incapable of actually answering a review right now. I will do it as soon as my brain starts working again.**
> 
> **I forgot to mention last time that this chapter is NSFW at the end. I have, however, posted the link for the SFW version, and you are welcome to read that one if you prefer. No judgement around here!**
> 
> [SFW version of Chapter 9](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UULsApj_sg5UYzmgCJvGER1qiHmy0qGsKiX9LZ69pR8/edit?usp=sharing)

_6:30 PM Wednesday_

Do you have plans tomorrow?

@}-^-

Nothing that can't be moved to another time… why?

-Morticia

How would you feel about babysitting Sherlock? John is still upset, and he needs someone to go sleuthing with.

@}-^-

And he's not going with you, why?

-Morticia

Long story. I'll buy you a drink tonight and tell you all about it if you'll keep an eye on him until about 5.

@}-^-

You'll probably owe me several.

-Morticia

I have no doubt. You're a life saver!

@}-^-

I had something you might be interested in come into the morgue the other day. Come by sometime and I'll show you.

-Morticia

Sounds saucy. Not tomorrow though, maybe the next day. Before the trial though, promise.

@}-^-

Trial?

-Morticia

Drinks tomorrow.

@}-^-

Fine! I'll be at Baker Street around 8 tomorrow.

-Morticia

Better make it 10. He sleeps late.

@}-^-

~?~?~?~?~

_Thursday 6:15 PM_

Molly walked into the pub, scanned the crowd, and found Rose sitting at the bar with two drinks in front of her. She crossed the room and took the seat to Rose's left and picked up the still-full martini glass that Rose pushed toward her.

She took a sip, then said "trial?" at the same moment that Rose said, "so what do you have for me at the morgue?"

The two girls looked at each other and laughed.

"Was he terrible?" Rose asked.

Molly shrugged. "Not too bad. He called me John once and Rose about six times. He did solve the Jack the Ripper skeleton thing that's been in all the papers."

Rose shook her head. "Yeah, he'd worked it out from the papers before we arrived in London, actually. Sorry about the other. He's an idiot."

"No, it was fine. He thanked me for the help in killing him, and wished me well with Tom, so that's better than he used to be."

"I can't wait until this trial business is over and I can keep an eye on him myself, the stupid man."

"Yes," Molly said setting her glass down and glaring at Rose. "Tell me about this 'trial' business."

"Don't you read the paper? I'm a wanted murderer. Britain's most wanted."

"But you didn't do it."

"Well… about that… I  _did_ actually throw him off a roof."

"But he didn't die!"

Rose shrugged. "Attempted murder, I suppose. And since the reason that I knew he wouldn't die is classified…"

"Do you need a witness for the defense?"

Rose grinned. "Always. I'll tell my solicitor that you're willing. But tell me about this thing you have for me… Dead aliens have to be more interesting than trials, honestly."

~?~?~?~?~

Rose unlocked the front door of 221 with a minimum of fumbling.

"I am  _not_  drunk," she said to the shade of Mickey who was laughing at her elbow.

"Of course you're not," he said in the most disbelieving voice possible. "You just can't walk in a straight line because of an inner-ear infection, is that it?"

"Oh bugger off, Mick," she muttered flipping the bolt into place behind her.

"Yeah, yeah. I remember how you are when you're sloshed. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, alright?"

Rose gave a two-fingered salute to the empty air beside her, but couldn't help smiling. She'd been so busy with the trial and her return that she'd barely spoken to him save for quick phone calls about Torchwood business as he shuttled between London and Cardiff. She owed him and Martha her undivided attention about their wedding and made a mental note to check with Martha about what she wanted to do for her hen party.

Only a week and she'd be a free woman, though it seemed like forever. She was more than ready to resume her life of aliens and murderers and running for her life. She'd been ordinary for far too long, it was time to return to normal.

When she opened the door to the flat, Sherlock was in the midst of chaos. There were maps and diagrams spread across every surface, and photographs tacked to the walls with no regard for Mrs. Hudson's wallpaper.

Speaking of normal.

Sherlock turned at her entrance and grinned, his face alive with intellectual excitement and pleasure at her presence.

"Rose!" he cried, crossing the room in two bounds and scooping her into his arms in a hug that turned without warning into a whirling dance as he led her around the furniture, setting her already-unsteady head spinning.

"Blimey," Rose said, when he finally stopped at his computer and pressed a firm if brief kiss onto her mouth. "Have you been drinking?"

"Not at all. You have though. With Molly."

"Guilty," Rose said, and plopped down on the sofa, hoping that the walls would deign to slow their twirl if she were still. "She tell you about it?"

"Nope," he said, eyes sparkling.

"So you guessed," Rose said, intentionally challenging him.

"Hardly!" Sherlock said, feigning horror. Rose hadn't seen him this cheerful since he'd come back from the continent, and it warmed her heart to see. "You smell of our local, but also of Molly's perfume, which she was wearing today while she was with me, and must have transferred to you when she hugged you… probably goodbye since it's not completely overpowered by the smell of beer and cigarettes."

Rose laughed. "Yes, yes, you're very impressive. You're also in quite a mood, what's gotten into you? Just spending time with Molly?" She ignored an odd twinge of jealousy at the idea, pushing it roughly aside. She was not in competition with Molly Hooper, who had a fiancee and was her very dear friend.

"Molly? No. Not that it wasn't lovely to see her," Sherlock waved Molly away with a dismissive hand, making Rose roll her eyes. "No, Howard!"

Rose blinked. "Howard?"

"Yes, Howard. The train bloke!"

Rose stared at him for a moment. "The… the  _train_ bloke?"

"Yes, of course," Sherlock said impatiently. "Cars not carriages and CCTV and…" he stopped as something occurred to him. "And you weren't there. You haven't met Howard."

"I don't believe so, no."

"Well… he's the bloke with the hat, and he found Mycroft's terrorist."

"Oh! Brilliant. So he's caught then?"

"I said found, not caught. We've lost him."

"Oh… damn. Where did you lose him? That seems the place to start looking."

"He disappeared on the tube between Westminster and St. James' Park." Sherlock looked at her expectantly.

Rose frowned, trying to force her alcohol-soaked brain to work properly. She didn't take the tube out that direction terribly often, though she had in the other universe on occasion.

"In… in the other universe, I don't think there's a stop between the two. Is there here?"

Sherlock smiled. "Nope! He's vanished on a train that doesn't stop, which is just…." He trailed off as though looking for a word to encompass just how excited he was.

"Fantastic?" Rose suggested

"Precisely. It is fantastic."

Rose stood, stretched, and yawned. "I'm glad you're having fun. Just remember that this is a  _job_ Mycroft has given you, not just a game, and catch your mouse before he blows something up, yeah? I'm off to bed."

Suddenly he was there in her space, his hands on her hips and his mouth by her ear. Rose wondered if she was more drunk than she thought, or if he was really that quick, but then he was speaking and his voice was like warm, black velvet, muffling all other concerns.

"Bed? That sounds like a wonderful idea, Rose Tyler. I think I'll join you."

Rose shivered as the ball of warm contentment brought about by inebriation and pleasant social intercourse sharpened into an electric jolt of lust. Sherlock's mouth was on the sensitive skin under the back of her ear and he was leading her around the furniture and back into their bedroom with just as much facility as he had done spinning her through the room earlier.

To Sherlock's surprise, when they reached the bedroom, Rose took sudden command. Where Sherlock had been pressing soft, nearly lazy kisses to the sensitive skin of her neck, Rose suddenly grabbed his head and held it in place, pulling his hair just enough for him to gasp and instinctively bite into her skin. Sherlock nearly pulled away to apologize, but the noise that she made- urgent and keening and wildly erotic- told him that she would not appreciate him stopping. Where Sherlock had been drawing slow, teasing circles on the soft skin of her stomach and back where her t-shirt rode up above the tops of her trousers, Rose took his hands and moved them over her breasts, holding them in place until she was certain that they would stay. While not usually one to take a hint, Sherlock proved remarkably adept at reading her desires and shoved the cups of her bra up to give himself access to her skin, rolling her hard nipples between his fingers before taking her entire breast in his hand to gently knead the soft, velvet flesh.

Sherlock had never known Rose to behave this way, and found the novelty arousing. In ordinary days Rose was a generous lover, nearly to a fault. Sherlock knew that she would allow her own pleasure to take second place to his, if she thought it necessary. As such, Sherlock was always careful to keep her pleasure at the forefront of his mind and be sure, even if she wouldn't, that she was satisfied before he was.

On that night, however, alcohol and happiness had stripped her inhibitions away and she would take what she wanted from him.

Her fingers fumbled at the buttons to his shirt and she was breathing her desires into his ear, even as he continued to attack her throat and jaw and mouth with his teeth. He knew that he was leaving marks, but he seemed unable to care enough to stop when every time his teeth scraped her skin, she gasped and cursed and begged him for more.

When her fumbling finally succeeded in opening his shirt, and Rose's hands found his skin, Sherlock growled and, pulling away from her finally in spite of her whining protests whipped her shirt off over her head and shoved her onto the bed, where she fell back with a giggle, her eyes wide and dark with wanting.

And he wanted her too. More than he wanted to solve the mystery of the man disappearing from the train car and where those extra five minutes had gone. He wanted Rose's body against his, warm and live and sweeter even than his hero complex.

Rose had kicked off her shoes and was wriggling out of her jeans as Sherlock stripped himself to nothing and pulled a condom out of his bedside drawer. Rose, in a surprisingly dexterous move, snagged the item from his fingers and tore it open herself and rolled it onto him, peeking up at him through her lashes, her tongue tucked firmly into the corner of the wicked grin she gave him.

It was too much. Sherlock pushed her back onto the mattress, following her down so that he was atop her, hip-to-hip, forehead-to-forehead. He could only be closer if he were inside of her.

"Now, Sherlock. Damnit, I want you  _now_."

He could have told her to be patient. He could have teased. He could have done a thousand different things, but he didn't. He gave in and slid inside her welcoming warmth.

She wouldn't let him stop, however, and began to buck against him immediately, urging him to move, to ride her, to give her pleasure and take his own.

Sherlock Holmes was not a man to take orders, but he could find no reason not to acquiesce to the demands her body made of him and so he moved inside of her, slowly at first, and then faster and harder as she pushed him over the edge.

He watched her face, her eyes were closed, screwed up against the wash of sensation, and her teeth were sunk into her lower lip, seeking that final edge that she could step off of.

Sherlock paused, ignored her moan of disappointment, and wrapped her leg around his arm, pushing it forward to give himself a new angle and to force her into stillness- forced her to let him give her pleasure. Drove her to the brink of madness himself, and reveled in her submission, particularly knowing it would not last.

She moaned beneath him, panting and crying out to god and to him until she howled and Sherlock lost his grip on his own control and howled with her.

Sherlock rolled off of Rose after a moment, but she seemed unwilling to stop touching him and rolled to meet him, lying limp across his chest, his heart beat strong and slow under her cheek.


	10. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Do you know who I can never say enough nice things about?  WhoLockGal.  A lot of you liked Molly's text signature in the last update, and that was all her.  She's on vacation right now, so I think you should all go read her Swaddled 'verse and leave lots of super nice comments because she deserves it.**
> 
> **In other news, there are some less-than-nice words at the end of this chapter.  They're NSFW, but I'm not putting up a redacted chapter because it's just words, not content.**
> 
> **I hope all of my fellow US-citizens enjoy their lovely long weekend.  Hug your favourite union-employee on Monday for me!**

Rose paced outside of the white facade of the address that Mary had sent her that morning.

_I need to talk to John._

_@}-^-_

_He's still angry with you._

_-M &M_

_He has every right to be, I still need to talk to him._

_@}-^-_

_Why?_

_-M &M_

_Because I owe him an explanation. Several of them. Years of them. Please?_

_@}-^-_

_He'll yell._

_-M &M_

_That's okay, he should._

_@}-^-_

_He punched Sherlock._

_-M &M_

_Do you really think John is the sort of man to punch a woman? Besides, I can take him._

_@}-^-_

_But you wouldn't._

_-M &M_

_No, he deserves to hit me. I've been wildly unfair to him. Can you just tell me where he'll be?_

_@}-^-_

_He has the day off. He should be at our place most of the day._

_-M &M_

Rose took a deep breath and approached the door. Again. It was the third time. She still hadn't knocked. She was certain that John deserved to yell at her, punch her, and never forgive her, but she wasn't looking forward to it all.

She shook her head and stepped away from the door again, cursing at her own cowardice.

Without warning, the door opened behind her.

"What are you doing here?"

Rose met John's cold blue gaze reluctantly, but she did it. She'd seen eyes that were that angry before- angry, betrayed, hurt, and broken, and the sight of them twisted her heart.

"I… I need your help with something."

"Mary said you were coming to apologize."

Rose blinked in surprise. "She told you I was coming?"

"Mary is always honest with me."

Rose pursed her lips, but did not say anything. It wasn't her story to tell. "And I haven't been, and you have every right to be angry with me for that. You needn't forgive me either, that's fine, but I'd like to be honest with you now, and part of that involves… showing you something. Something I should have shown you years back. Please?"

"Is this something going to explain where you've been and what you've been doing for the past two years?"

Rose gave a tight smile. "Probably not. That one's going to mostly have to be accepted on faith, since I don't have any proof. This is something different. Do… do you mind coming with me?"

"Where to?"

"St. Bart's. We need Molly for this one."

John huffed an irritated breath through his nose. For the first time, Rose noticed the difference on his face- he'd shaved his moustache. He looked younger without it. More like the John she'd known, but pale and angry, not pleasant and jovial.

"Molly isn't at fault here, I promise. She didn't know where we were. All she knew was that Sherlock was alive."

"And she didn't tell me."

"I asked her not to. Not you specifically," Rose clarified, seeing his face darken. "I asked her not to tell anyone at all. I was on the run from the law, and anyone who knew Sherlock was alive was in danger."

"I've run a lot of dangers for Sherlock. I'd have died for him. Died long before I pushed him off a roof."

Rose nodded. "I know. I don't think you'd have made the choice I made, even knowing everything that I knew, you'd never have done it. It was too big a risk, and while you're not averse to taking risks with yourself, you'd never risk someone else. It's what makes you a good man, John Watson."

John shook his head. "Don't think you can get into my head. It won't help you."

Rose nodded. "Will you come with me?"

John raised his eyebrows.

"Look," Rose said with a sigh, "I'm not Sherlock. I'm asking. You're not required to forgive me. Truth to tell, you probably shouldn't, but if you're going to hate me, it should be for everything I've done."

"I'm testifying against you at the trial next week."

"Yeah, I know."

"You can't stop me from doing it."

A slight smile teased the corner of Rose's mouth. "Yeah, I know."

"Still want me to come with you?"

This time the smile touched both corners of her mouth. "Yeah, I do."

John sighed and shrugged and pulled the door shut behind him. He jogged down the steps and fell beside Rose, in step with her up the road.

"Sorry to see the moustache go," Rose said, after they'd walked three blocks in silence.

"Made me look old," John answered gruffly. After a moment when Rose said nothing, John glanced at her, head cocked. "Not going to deny it?"

Rose smiled, but kept her eyes ahead. "You'd just know I was lying. What does Mary think about it?"

"She hated it, apparently. Tell me how you know her."

"She's known me longer than I've known her. One of those odd realities of being famous. The first time I met her I saved her though, and that forms a bond."

"Saved her how?"

Rose shook her head. "It's her story. I've asked her to tell you, but things are a bit complicated right now. You'll want a clear head when you hear it."

John made a noise in the back of his throat that was very nearly a growl.

"It's… well it's complicated, and Mary thinks you have enough complications in your life right now. After the trial, I promise you, she'll tell you."

John looked at Rose from the side of his eye again. "I don't accept promises from you anymore."

Rose pursed her lips but nodded. "That's probably fair."

~?~?~?~?~

"Aliens," John said, his face pale, but his voice steady.

Rose kept her head bent over the strong cup of tea she was making for him, but she could feel a smile starting to creep over her face. "Yup," she said, with emphasis on the final consonant.

"Like real, proper aliens. From outer space?"

"Mmhmm."

"And they might be walking around like… in skin suits… or… other nasty and horrible things?"

"Yeah, but not all of them do it that way. Some of them look a lot like us (or we look like them, depending on who you ask) and you'd never know the difference."

"And you know about this?"

Rose turned, cup of tea in hand, and held it out to him. "Yeah. Earth's leading alien expert, me. Director of Torchwood, Europe's first defense against aliens. And… well… bit of an alien myself, really."

John nearly choked on the sip of tea he'd just taken. "You?"

Rose shrugged. "I told you once that I used to travel with this bloke. That I loved him?"

"Yeah," he said, warily.

"Well, he wasn't just a bloke, he was an alien. And we didn't just travel the world, we traveled space and time."

"That's impossible."

Rose said nothing, just raised an eyebrow at him.

"Physics… doesn't work that way. Time travel is impossible."

Rose gave a meaningful glance at the door leading from Molly's office (where they currently stood) into the morgue where lay a dead 10-foot tall Raxicoricofalapatorian that Rose had zipped out of the chubby human skin suit that was patently too small for it.

"Physics. That's your objection?"

John blinked and frowned. Rose turned back to Molly's kettle and quickly put together another cup of tea for the woman herself, who was leaning against the back wall of her office, watching the argument like a tennis match.

"The stars," John said, after a long moment.

"That's why I had to do it, you see. Kill him and save myself. No one could have brought the stars back but me. He had to die to save you, and I had to do it to stay alive. I might have actually killed him to save the universe, if it had come to that." Rose could feel the ice coming from John at that admission and sighed.

"The universe is a big, mad, dangerous place, John," she said, turning to face him, all trace of a smile gone from her face and voice. "It's full of wonderful, terrible things, and every one of them would have died if we hadn't been able to stop the stars going out. And it's not ego that says I'm the only person who could have done it, it's a fact. Sherlock's life isn't worth the universe, even as much as I love him."

For a moment, John's face registered nothing but shock, but after a moment shrewdness returned. "Love?"

"Yes." Rose was defiant, lifting her chin to stand tall.

"And he knows about… all this?" John waved a hand toward the morgue, encompassing the alien, the skin suit, and all of Rose's stories.

"He came with me to bring back the stars."

John blinked again. "Sherlock Holmes, who doesn't know that the earth orbits the sun?"

Rose gave a tight smile. "Even if you don't forgive me, you really must forgive him. He wanted to tell you from the moment we were safe in Cardiff. I was the one who said he shouldn't."

John opened his mouth to speak again, but the tinny ringer on his phone cut him off.

"Mary, how are you?"

" _John, are you with Rose still?"_

John frowned at Rose, who was watching him over the rim of her paper cup of tea. "Yeah."

" _Oh thank god, put me on speaker."_

John's frown deepened, but he pulled the phone away from his ear and turned the speaker on. "You're live," he said.

"Rose?"

"I'm here, Mary, what's wrong?"

"Oh god, Rose. Someone's got Sherlock!"

~?~?~?~?~

"I've never heard of a cipher like that," John said, holding onto the handle of the passenger side of Molly's car for dear life.

"You wouldn't have," Rose said, vaguely. All of her attention was on driving through the holiday traffic and making it to the church before something horrible happened. "It's alien… sorta."

"Alien? But Mary…"

"I haven't got time to explain it, John!" Rose shouted. "Just shut up unless you can be helpful!"

John's mouth snapped shut, an instinctive reaction from years as Sherlock Holmes' right hand and Rose sped through a light as it turned red. Ten minutes to get to the church. From Baker Street- where Mary had gone looking for her and Sherlock originally- it would have taken 20. From St. Bart's it should only take 5. The traffic for Guy Fawkes' night was slowing her down, in spite of her weaving in and out of the cars. She'd be better off on a motorcycle, Rose thought, but there hadn't been one available. Molly had turned over her car keys without demur when Rose had asked, however.

John's phone jangled again and he opened it irritably. "Watson!" he shouted without checking the readout.

"They've sent a countdown to my phone," came Mary's voice on the line.

"How long have we got?"

"Three minutes."

"Fuck."

"We're here," Rose said, slamming on the breaks. "Where could they have him?"

She and John piled out of the car, looking around.

"Inside the church?" John suggested, frowning at the looming edifice.

Rose wasn't paying attention.

"He doesn't like it," she heard in a lilting voice- the voice of a child.

With a fwhoom, the Guy Fawkes' bonfire lit in front of the building, and people suddenly began shrieking.

"Fuck," Rose said, with feeling, and took off running.


	11. Lucky Bastard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I present for your Fanfiction Friday pleasure a lovely long chapter where many very exciting things happen.**

"He's one lucky bastard."

The voice drifted through his head, disconnected from face or memory. The words made sense, each of themselves, but the phrase was meaningless.

"Lucky. Luh….key. Loooooooooooki." The word swam about his head, stretching and warping and echoing.

"Oh do stop it, Sherlock, won't you? You've become downright tedious."

With a start, Sherlock was sitting in a chair in Mycroft's Pall Mall office, facing his brother across his desk.

"Luck," Mycroft said, disdainfully. "It's just coincidence, and what do we say about coincidence?"

"It's what the universe does for fun," Sherlock said.

Mycroft raised a single eyebrow.

"No… that's not right," Sherlock said, frowning. "That was the TARDIS. You… you think that the universe is rarely so lazy."

"If you're depending on luck, we're all in trouble, brother-mine. Now wake up and stop being such a fool."

Sherlock's eyes opened.

"Finally awake, my lad?" asked a voice above him which seemed attached to a slim, yellowish figure.

Sherlock's eyes felt gritty and his brain felt melted. It took him far longer than it should have to place the voice.

"Mary," he grated, feeling like his lungs were blistered. "Where's…"

"Sherlock!"

This voice he had no trouble in recognizing. He wished he could sink back into dreams and away from it but no… Mycroft would surely just send him back out.

"Mother," he said, tasting ash on his breath. Had he been smoking? He blinked to bring his mother's form into focus, and saw another tall, slim form behind her. "Dad," he said, finally recognizing it.

"Good morning, son," his father said with an ironic smile. "Keeping out of trouble?"

"Now where would be the fun in that?" Sherlock coughed. Not cigarette smoke, wood smoke. He couldn't seem to piece together the last 24 hours, but he was in a hospital bed, and he felt like hell. That was never a good sign.

"Not that I'm not glad to see you," he lied to his parents, "but what are you doing here?"

"Rose called us, of course," Violet said, crossing the room and peering down at him as she had always done when he was a child and fell ill. "We were coming into the city anyway. Don't know if you remember Mr. and Mrs. Russell? He's an American. Their daughter is a few years younger than you, but she grew up in Sussex when we lived there, I think you knew her at least a bit. Anyway, they're in the city from California and invited us to dinner with them, so we're just stopping by to check that you're well."

"Russell…" Sherlock said, vaguely. He was still trying to piece together the previous day and how he'd ended up in the hospital. "Daughter Mary. Ten years younger than me. Studied Theology at Oxford."

"That's her!" his mother said, delighted.

"You always did have a sharp memory for pretty young blondes," his father said, with a knowing flash in his eyes.

Sherlock turned to Mary, an image finally returning to him. Rose's face, hovering over him, soot-streaked, and reddened by heat. Blistered? He couldn't see clearly enough to tell. Beside her, John. Less dirty than she, but pale and frightened, eyes wide as hers. He couldn't hear them, something was wrong with his ears, but they were both mouthing his name.

"Where is-"

"Rose is in the corridor, talking to John," Mary answered, before he could finish. "Only two guests at a time."

Sherlock glanced pointedly at his two parents, and then at her, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not a guest, I'm a nurse," she said, primly. "I work here part time and at John's clinic part time. I'm actually on duty, though I did request you specifically while you're here. Apparently you've been here before and none of the floor nurses were interested in usurping my claim."

"He's always been a nightmare when he's not feeling well," Violet said, fondly.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and struggled to sit up so that he could see into the corridor.

"What do you think you're doing?" Mary cried, moving forward to push him back down.

"Get off me, I'm just…" Sherlock tried to shout, but his abused lungs only allowed him to rasp it out before sending him into a coughing fit.

Suddenly, two bodies were in the door, two worried faces looking at him.

"Sherlock, what are you doing?" Rose asked, crossing her arms and glaring down at him.

He couldn't respond because he was still coughing.

"Lie down and calm down," John said, his voice a commander's bark rather than his usual gentle bedside manner.

Mary, still with her hands on Sherlock's shoulders, pulled him back against the pillows.

"If you wanted to sit up, you could just ask," she said, with a wry smirk. The bed whirred and slowly Sherlock's shoulders elevated. Mary shook her head at his wide-eyed surprise. She then turned to the rest of the group. "Only two visitors at a time. Rose and John, you'll have to go back into the hall if Violet and Siger aren't finished-"

"They are," Sherlock cut in.

"Sherlock!" Rose, John, and Mary said in chorus. Violet and Siger just smiled.

"Glad you're having fun," Violet said, leaning down to brush a kiss over Sherlock's cheek. Sherlock winced, surprised that his skin seemed blistered.

"You take care of yourself," his father said, patting him gently on the shoulder. "And let her take care of you," he added in an undertone, leaning close.

Then, suddenly, his parents were gone, and he was left with Rose and John and fuzzy memories of darkness and smoke.

~?~?~?~?~

_The previous night_

Rose ran like hell. The fire was already beginning to blaze as she made her way over to it, hot and dry and crackling. Some of the wood was wet and it was smoking like mad as well. She didn't think, if she thought, she knew she wouldn't be able to do it.

She broke through the pyre, tossing burning logs away, breaking apart the carefully constructed cone of wood. She felt her hands burning, blistering, splinters breaking those blisters and having them reform as she grabbed another blazing log to shove away.

"Sherlock," she yelled. "Damn you, Sherlock, say something!"

She couldn't hear anything over the chuckle of the flames and the screams and shouts behind her. She was sweating, could feel her skin burning, wanted to stop, but couldn't until she found him.

_Could he possibly be alive in there?_

"Sherlock!" Rose shouted, inhaling the smoke and soot, feeling her lungs protest. "Sherlock Holmes, you bastard, where are you?"

She had to be near the centre now. Was he there? Was she wrong? Time was up, wherever he was.

A groan.

Rose sent up a prayer of thanks to the universe and plunged into the smoky space. It was hot, dark, and stifling, but perhaps not so bad as the flames on the outside. She grabbed the figure and dragged it out, hoping she wasn't pulling someone's effigy out in place of whatever had groaned. She thought it was too heavy for that, and when it squirmed, she knew.

"Bloody hell but you're heavy," she growled, continuing to drag, pulling him away from the heat of the still-burning fire. She settled him in the grass a safe distance from the flames, but still in the light. She could hear sirens coming closer- good, someone had called the ambulances. They wouldn't be long.

"Sherlock," she called, feeling her throat scratch from the smoke as she checked him over for injuries. His hands and feet were tied. "Oh hell," she said, seeing that. "You were kidnapped, you idiot. I only just got you back and you got your dumb arse kidnapped. I'll kill you for this."

At that moment John dropped to his knees across from her.

"Is he conscious?"

Rose looked at his face. His eyelids were fluttering, but no, he didn't seem to be awake.

"Sherlock?" she called, slapping his face gently. John put his ear to Sherlock's chest and listened for a moment.

"John!" Rose called as Sherlock's eyes fluttered open. "He's waking up."

John sat up to look at his friend whose eyes had opened, but not-quite focussed on either face. "Sherlock?" he called. "Damn it, Sherlock, look at me!"

His eyes shut again with a flutter.

~?~?~?~?~

Rose stood quiet as John gave directions to the paramedics who arrived then. He kept a wary eye on her, not sure that he trusted her not to suddenly put a pillow over Sherlock's face and finish what she'd started at the hospital two years ago.

The past three hours swam in his head like mad. Seeing Rose again at his front door. The zipper across the forehead of the dead man in the morgue. The huge, green, foul-smelling creature that had emerged after Rose had instructed him and Molly to stand back. Aliens. Then Mary and her cypher. Then the fire. Rose running into the mouth of Hell to get Sherlock out.

Not a bit of it made sense to him, and he had too much to do to sort it all out.

"His lungs sound congested but not blistered. His heart is fine. He has some burns that'll need to be looked after but I don't think he's too bad," he said to the lead paramedic.

"He was inside the fire?" she asked, disbelieving.

"Yeah, a kid started hearing moaning while they were lighting it, but no one paid her any mind until it turned into screaming."

"But who went in and got him out?"

John glanced back at Rose who was standing by as two more paramedics lifted Sherlock onto a stretcher. "That girl, there," he said, pointing.

"And is  _she_ alright after running through a bonfire?"

John opened his mouth to say "yes, she's fine," but stopped. He had no idea if Rose had been hurt, and thought perhaps she didn't know either. They'd both been too focussed on Sherlock.

The paramedic seemed to see his hesitation and crossed quickly to Rose who was watching the loading of Sherlock into the ambulance with vague detachment that spoke to John of shock.

"Miss? Miss, are you okay?"

Rose blinked and focussed on the woman's face which was several inches above hers.

"Me? Oh yeah, fine," she said, not really thinking about it.

Without asking the woman picked up one of Rose's hands and examined it. Rose couldn't seem to see what the issue was, just noticed that, with the soot and grime across her palm, her hand was nearly as dark in the uncertain light as the hand that held it, though less smoothly coloured.

"I'm a bit filthy," she said, before everything went black.

John, who had been slowly making his way over to the pair was just in time to help the paramedic who caught her before in lowering her to the ground.

"Shock," the woman said, succinctly. "She's got worse burns than he does, especially on her face and hands."

"Is she going to scar?" John asked. He had no idea why he asked such an inane question, but it worried him that Rose's pretty face might be ruined.

"No idea. You don't know this girl, do you?"

"I… er… actually yeah, she's a… she used to be a friend."

"Do you know who her doctor is?"

John opened his mouth to say "no" when a name he hadn't thought of in ages came to mind. "Martha Jones," he said, remembering the pretty girl who had dated Mickey back when they'd all been friends. "I think she's at St. Bart's."

"I'll contact her," the woman said, waving over two more paramedics from the ambulance.

"And the police?" John asked.

"They just arrived, they'll want to talk to you."

John looked up to find a pair of familiar faces making their way over to him and the paramedic and Rose, who was returning to consciousness. He stood to greet Greg Lestrade and Sally Donovan.

"Someone said it was Sherlock," Greg said as he approached them and reached out for John's hand. He glanced down to see Rose sitting up, assisted by the paramedic. "Rose? Are you alright? You look like hell!"

"Well I feel like a meadow of daisies, never fear," Rose said. She noticed the two paramedics approaching with another stretcher and glanced around. "No, don't," she said, concluding that it must be for her. "I really don't need it."

"Miss," the paramedic said in a tone of slight annoyance. She glanced at Lestrade and started again, "Rose, you dove into a fire. It was brave as hell, but stupid as shit too. You're burned worse than your boyfriend over there and you're in shock. At a minimum you'll need fluids, and you need those burns tended immediately. I'm not letting you out of this, so just be nice to the boys and go to the hospital like a good girl."

Rose attempted a glare, but found that it hurt the blistered skin of her face and gave it up as a bad job. As the paramedics helped her onto the stretcher, she turned to Greg and John. "Call Martha Jones and my dad, please?" she said. "Mickey too, if he's not with Martha."

Sally already had her notebook out and was writing those names down. "I got Martha Jones and Pete Tyler," she said, turning to the two men as Rose was carried away under the eye of the lead paramedic. "Mickey?"

"Mickey Smith," Greg and John answered together.

"Rose's best friend," John clarified.

"And also Martha Jones' fiancee- that last comment, you know," Greg added.

"I'll call them," Sally glanced around to where police officers were questioning the crowd. "Do the three of us want to head out to the hospital? I think Rose is our best witness, besides John here."

Greg nodded. "I think that'll do. John? Do you need a lift?"

John wondered for a moment if he too was in shock. Then he remembered that this was the normal way for him to feel when Sherlock Holmes was in town.

"Yeah," he said, resigned. "I guess I do."

~?~?~?~?~

"We'll go down to Cardiff and see what Rory can do for you," Mickey promised, smoothing a thumb over Rose's cheekbone which was covered in a thick cream to numb the pain of her burns.

"Not until after the trial," she said, with a half-smile. "I don't mind looking a bit like a Batman villain. Means the pap won't want pictures, right?"

"Are you kidding?" Martha asked, finishing wrapping a bandage around Rose's left hand. "They're practically mobbing the front of the hospital now. They can't wait for an unflattering photo of you."

Rose wrinkled her nose, more to test her range of motion in her face than from any actual surprise or annoyance. It hurt and she sighed.

"Tell me again, Babe," Mickey said, leaning back in his chair to listen. He knew the story she'd told Jackie and Pete had been abbreviated, and the story she'd told Greg had been more fabrication than truth, but they were all gone, and it was just him and Martha, and he'd have it all out of her.

Rose sighed and leaned back against the pillows. She'd be too restless to stay in bed before much longer, but she was willing to sit for now, knowing that Sherlock was passed out cold.

"I took John to see Molly's Raxicoricofalapatorian," she said, simply.

"I thought he was dead," Mickey said, frowning. "The Slitheen, not John."

"There's only one family called Slitheen, Mickey," Rose said, beginning a lecture she'd given him dozens of times before.

He cut her off before she could get started. "I know there's only one family Slitheen, but it's easier to say than Raxicorico-thing."

Rose grinned and opened her mouth to say it again, but stopped with a giggle as Mickey glared at her.

"Right well, he is dead. The alien, not John."

"So what's he got to do with you jumping into bonfires?"

"Nothing particular, just that we were together and John was just learning about aliens when Mary calls with a Vulcan Cipher that had just been sent to her."

Mickey frowned. They'd named the cipher after the Star Trek aliens when the actual race's name had proven impossible for any of them to say. They'd been wicked clever, however, and their ciphers had revolutionized Torchwood's security systems after Moriarty had brought it down three years ago.

"She picked it up a lot faster than I would have," Rose continued. "Apparently it's part of the Agency training program, so she's been reading them for an age. So we went and found Sherlock and saved him."

"What did it say?"

"Once it was translated, it was creepy as hell," Rose said, pulling out her phone which had fortunately survived the fire intact. "You've been away but now it's time to play, rain won't save him if it comes another day. Over hill and over dale, he'll be ash if you fail. Turn left and right and right and left, and you're at the church of St. James the Less. Twenty minutes," she read.

"That sounds like Moriarty," Martha said, sitting down in a chair and looking between Mickey and Rose, eyes wide."

Rose nodded. "That's what I thought too. Molly examined him, right? He  _is_ dead, isn't he?"

"I examined him too, after you got in touch with me. He's dead, Rose, I promise," Martha said, patting her shoulder.

"So it's someone with a similar sense of humour," Rose said, darkly. "That's hardly better, to be honest."

"And they're alien," Mickey said, with a frown.

"Or Time Agency," Rose offered.

"Or someone who got into Torchwood archives," Martha said.

"You win, that's the scariest option," Rose said to Martha.

"And then there's the even scarier question," Mickey said, looking carefully at Rose.

"Whether it's Sherlock they were trying to get at…" Rose said.

"Or you," Mickey concluded.

"Or me," Rose agreed.

~?~?~?~?~

Rose sat on the bench outside of Sherlock's room, watching the clock. She wasn't allowed into the room save during visiting hours.

"You're not his wife or a member of his family, you can't go in." The nurse had been very apologetic, but insistent.

She felt their presence before either one spoke and looked up, then jumped up to greet them.

"John! Are you alright? I didn't even ask last night."

He shook his head, dismissing her concern. "I'm fine, no burns, nothing." He peered at her face, which was shiny with burn and ointment, and at her bandaged hands. "Better than you, anyway."

Rose gave a half-smile. "I'll be fine. I know a few things that will help. Chances are good I won't even have scars."

John narrowed his eyes at her, but they were in a public hallway and he couldn't ask, and Rose just continued to smile blandly at him. He shook his head again and glanced at the door that she sat beside. "He in there?"

Rose nodded. "Do you get to go in outside of visiting hours because you're a doctor?" she asked.

"He doesn't, but I do," Mary said. It was then that Rose noticed Mary was wearing a scrub suit like the nurses she'd met.

"I didn't realize you worked here. I thought you worked at the surgery with John!" Rose said in surprise.

"I do both. Life would be rather boring without some variety, eh?"

"We wouldn't any of us want to be boring, now would we?" Rose said, raising a significant eyebrow at Mary's still-bare left hand.

Mary gave a small shake of her head, then took her leave of John and Rose and entered Sherlock's room.

"So…" John said, trailing off and not meeting her eyes. "You're okay then?"

"Yeah," Rose said, feeling awkward. "I'm fine. I'll be… fine."

The pair stood in awkward silence for a few more minutes before someone at the end of the hall called her name.

"Rose dear, there you are! They said he was up here and I was sure you wouldn't be far away."

"Oh blimey," Rose muttered. "I didn't expect them to get here so fast."

John turned to look to find an older couple coming up the hallway together. They were not Rose's parents, but they seemed to know her.

"Who-" he began, but was interrupted as the woman reached them and wrapped Rose in a motherly hug.

"Be careful, Vi," the man said, resting a hand on his wife's shoulder, "can't you see she's burned?"

"Oh goodness," the woman (Vi?) said, pulling back from the hug to look at Rose's face carefully for the first time. "What did you do, dear?"

"Something wildly ill-advised," Rose said with a tight smile. "I don't think you've met John Watson, have you?"

"We haven't," the woman said, turning to look at John. "Heard a lot about him though, obviously." She wrapped John in a warm hug as she had Rose. Rose grinned at the shock on John's face over Violet's shoulder.

"John, this is Violet and Siger Holmes, Sherlock and Mycroft's parents," she said to that look of complete wrong-footedness.

Violet released him then and held him at arm's length,as she had with Rose, just looking at him.

"I don't know what we'd do without you," she said, warmly. "Rose is rather terrible at keeping Sherlock out of trouble. Comes of having just as much liking for the stuff as he does." She gave Rose a friendly smile over John's shoulder as she said this to show she held no ill-will. "But you're good for keeping their heads on straight, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you doing that."

John had no idea what to say to this assessment. "Oh... well... thanks," was all he managed.

Luckily for John, Mary appeared at Sherlock's door in that moment to tell Violet and Siger that they could come in.

"Did they know?" John asked as the pair disappeared into the room.

"About which thing?"

"Pick one."

Rose sighed. "They knew he was alive. Mycroft told them. Against my better judgment, mind. As for the alien thing... I told Siger some stories while I lived with them. Not sure how much he believed and how much he was humouring me."

"They weren't at the funeral."

"They were out of the country." Rose paused for a long moment, both of them studying the tile under their feet. "I was there," she said, finally.

"At the funeral?" John asked, looking at her sharply.

Rose nodded, still not looking up. "And the graveside. When you said you'd never forgive me and… and you asked him not to be dead. I was there. So was he." She finally raised her eyes to his. "You must forgive him, John. This is my fault, not his."

"You keep asking for forgiveness on his behalf," John said, looking at her shrewdly. "He's never asked."

A rueful smile touched Rose's mouth. "John, it's  _Sherlock_."

John couldn't help it, he chuckled slightly. As much as Sherlock might have changed in the time since meeting John Watson and Rose Tyler, some things would never change, and one of those things was that Sherlock Holmes rarely apologized unless lead through it by the nose.

"You also make a point of not asking for yourself," he said, the smile vanishing from his face.

Rose shrugged. "Honestly? I don't think I deserve it. Do I want it? Yes. Gods, John… I want things to be back to the way they were. I want to go to the pub with you, and listen to you and Mickey complain for hours on end about football with me and Martha rolling our eyes. I want to wipe the floor with the other trivia teams at the local. I want things to go back to normal." Rose could feel tears building in her eyes, and took a deep breath, blinking them away. "That's why, you know," she continued, once her voice was steady. "Since I was 19 it's been all aliens and saving the universe and time travel and every bloody thing, and it's almost impossible to make friends because I'm a bloody celebrity, and no one can see past that. So everyone I know knows about the aliens and the Doctor and…"

"The Doctor?" John asked.

"The alien bloke I used to travel with," Rose said, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. "But you didn't see the celebrity, and you didn't know about the aliens, and for the first time in ten years, I was able to just be Rose Tyler. Not Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth. Not Rose Tyler, the Doctor's companion. Just me. Just… ordinary."

John raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You have never been ordinary in your life."

Rose gasped out a laugh that was nearly a sob. "No, but I was closest with you. You wanted to talk about the military and wine and plays and food. Not supernovas and alien invasions and 52nd century banana plantations."

"Banana plantations?"

Again, she waved away the question. "It was selfish not to tell you. I wanted to keep what we had normal, and I didn't trust you not to decide I was too weird, or to look past all of it like you did the tabloid bollocks. It was unfair, and I am sorry. I want you to forgive me, I really do, but I also know that you probably shouldn't. I'm dishonest, John. I've been dishonest with you from the beginning, and you deserve better."

John opened his mouth as though to say something when a shout and horrible deep-chested coughing and choking came from inside Sherlock's room. The pair were instantly on alert and on the move to the door of his room- enmity forgotten in their shared loyalty to Sherlock.

Once they reached the door, however, and could see what was happening, both relaxed and, for a moment, it was like old times. John and Rose united in mutual exasperation with Sherlock. Once Violet and Siger had left though (Siger had taken Rose's hand and squeezed it with a small, secret smile, Violet had instructed her to call if she needed anything at all) there was a palpable air of returning tension among the three old friends.

"Rose," Sherlock said, suddenly, breaking the uncomfortable silence, "your face."

Rose glanced up from where she had been studying the toes of her trainers, looking slightly surprised. "Oh yeah," she said, waving a dismissive hand. "Got a bit singed last night."

Sherlock, catching sight of her bandaged hand, was on alert again. "And your hands! Rose what happened?"

John frowned. "You don't remember?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Bits and pieces, but I can't recall how they all fit together."

"Your stupid ass got kidnapped yesterday and nearly turned into an effigy of the Pope, though a less likely Pope I can't imagine," Rose explained, quickly.

"What?" Sherlock said, frowning.

"You were in the middle of a Guy Fawkes' bonfire," John explained.

"Kidnapped?" Sherlock said.

"Your hands and feet were tied. We didn't find you until it was already lit so… you've got a bit of damage from smoke-inhalation, and I'm a bit burned," Rose explained, shrugging it off.

"Rose…" Sherlock began, but she shook her head.

"I'll be fine, Sherlock. Once the trial is over, I'll have to go down to Cardiff and let Rory poke at me. It's not a problem."

"What's in Cardiff?" John asked. "You keep mentioning it."

"Rose's physician," Sherlock said at the same time that Rose said, "what's left of Torchwood headquarters and an entire medbay of alien and futuristic medicines."

Sherlock's eyes widened as he heard this explanation, and his eyes went quickly to his best friend, who showed only a little bit of surprise at the news.

"You told him?" he asked Rose.

Rose said nothing, but gave a tight smile in response. "I think I'll go down to the cafeteria and get a cup of tea. Can I bring you all anything?" She barely allowed three heads to shake before she vanished out the door.

Sherlock watched her go, concerned. After a moment, he turned those sharp, blue-green eyes on John. "What happened last night?"

John shook his head. "I hardly know. She showed me some giant green alien in a human skin suit, then there was a code," he glanced at Mary, "and don't think I won't hear how you knew anything about that, mind," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Then she was driving like a mad person through holiday traffic and then she's diving into a fire to save your sorry arse. She's got the heart of a lion, she does, and no common sense at all, and you're a lucky bastard that she does."

Mary and Sherlock stared at John in shock as he reached the end of this diatribe.

"So… you've forgiven her?" Sherlock asked, slowly.

"What?" John asked, wrong-footed.

"You really should, you know. She had only your best interests at heart," Sherlock continued.

"Good god, I don't understand  _either_ of you two!" John shouted, and stormed out of the room.


	12. Regroup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **There's a very legitimate question that I'm sure many of you are asking:**
> 
> **"Where the hell have you been, Wheel?"**
> 
> **The honest truth is that I've been drifting a bit.  I have a lot of WIPs going right now, and apparently not enough attention to work on any of them for more than about 10 words at a time.  I am trying to fix that, and I do appreciate your patience.**

After about 15 minutes, Rose returned to Sherlock's hospital room, surprised to find John missing.

She sat in the chair at Sherlock's side and looked at him. He appeared to have fallen asleep again, and Mary was gone.

"Don't do that again, okay?" she said quietly, taking his long, thin hand in hers. "Don't… you can't leave me, you know that? I chose you. I mean, I chose this universe, and my mum and Pete, and Tony, and Mickey, and Torchwood and everything, but in the end… you have to know that I chose you. It wouldn't be the same… might not have been the same choice but for you. You weighed heavy in that decision, so you can't leave me. I'm stuck here now. Properly stuck, there's no going back, so you're stuck with me too."

She sighed, and lifted his hand to her mouth to kiss. "I just got you back, Sherlock, and you tried to leave me again, and I hate it. I know it's not safe, this life we lead. It's not smart and it's not easy, but it's important, and I know that. Gods know I don't want to stop living it." She sighed and pressed his hand to the side of her face. "It's not that I object to walking through fire for you, okay? I've done worse when I loved less, but it bloody hurts, and I don't want you asking me to do it again for a good long while, okay?"

A noise made her look up from Sherlock's face to find John standing at the door, watching her with an unreadable expression. Rose set Sherlock's hand back on the bed, and John settled himself in the chair across from her, looking at her carefully across their friend's still form. There was a long silence before John finally spoke.

"Who was it then?" John asked, keeping his voice light.

"The kidnappers? I'd say it was Sherlock's terrorists, but unless Mycroft completely misread them, they're not the sort to have access to things like the Vulcan Cypher."

John let out a snort of laughter at the name of the code, and Rose gave a slight smile.

"Mycroft seemed pretty sure they were home-grown terrorists, after normal things like political upheaval and potential anarchy. I called Cardiff to see if there's any noise that might point in this direction, and there's nothing. I'm sure we'd have heard something if it were an alien plot that had gotten this far. Torchwood security was down a few years ago, but that was before we'd gotten the cypher. Besides that, it was a very complex message, considering how complicated the cypher is. It would take years of using it to write something like that."

"Could Mary do it?" John asked, sharply.

Rose hesitated, looking at him carefully. "I think so, yes," she finally said.

"Is she an alien?"

"No, Mary is human."

"Then what-" John began, but Rose interrupted him.

"It's not my story to tell, John! Mary will tell you soon, I promise, but until then, you'll just have to trust her."

"Trust-" John began in disbelief.

"Yes, trust. I'll tell you this for free: she has never done  _anything_ to hurt you. She wouldn't. She loves you, John. And if you love her, you will trust her for a few more days until she can tell you herself. I'm not asking you to trust  _me_ , I'm asking you to trust  _Mary_."

John scowled, but he sat back in his seat, no longer pressing her. Rose sighed. Mary would have to come clean soon or Rose might strangle the woman herself. She had enough secrets and lies to contend with herself without having to try to keep up with Mary's.

"So what happened to Sherlock last night is separate from his ongoing investigation?" he finally asked.

"I think so."

"Big coincidence, that."

"It might not be so big as all that, given that I don't think Sherlock is the target."

John sat forward again. "It was Sherlock in the middle of that fire!"

"I know, and Mary got a clue to get him out. If someone wanted Sherlock dead, but they wanted to give a clue like that, they should have sent it to me. I can work out the cypher eventually, but I'm nowhere near as fast as Mary. No, whoever did it gave Sherlock the best possible chance of survival. If someone is supposed to be dead, it's not Sherlock."

John sat back in his seat again, stunned. "Then who is it?" he breathed.

"I won't say it could be anybody, 'cause I don't think it can. I'd say it's probably either you, or me, or Mary, or Mycroft. It could also potentially be Mickey or anyone else from Torchwood. That said, I have no idea which of us it is. You know how detective work sometimes goes- you have to wait for the next clue to show up. Lucky us that this mad person seems to like giving clues."

"Are… are we in danger?" John asked.

"I honestly don't know. They didn't seem to want to kill Sherlock, so maybe he's not out to kill us, but I'm not sure that's comforting. I'd suggest the buddy system, but Mycroft would never agree to have a buddy."

John smiled.

"I think for now just keep your eyes open and have someone to watch your back as often as possible. Maybe it's nothing, but it can't hurt to keep an eye out."

"Do you think it's nothing?" John asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I don't. But that doesn't change anything. There's nothing to be done for now but to keep watch. What can be done is to catch Mycroft's terrorists in case they  _are_ responsible for it."

John glanced at the bed where Sherlock's eyes were still closed.

"What do you know about them?" he asked.

"Practically nothing," Rose admitted. "I know that Sherlock lost one of them on the Underground between two stations without a station between them."

"Underground," Sherlock murmured.

"I thought you were awake," Rose said, and John raised his eyebrows. "If you've something to say, sit up and say it."

He opened his eyes and winked at her then. "But you were doing such a good job on your own."

Rose pursed her lips and gave him a cool glare. "Solving mysteries is your wheelhouse, not mine Sherlock Holmes."

"I haven't really been listening so much as watching the CCTV footage in my mind's eye while you discussed my close call with becoming barbeque."

"Not nearly close enough if you don't get to the point soon, my lad."

John felt a smile creeping over his face. It was like old times- Sherlock and Rose snarking at each other and him enjoying the tennis match. She'd tease and harass Sherlock into giving a proper answer as few other people could.

"For you, my dear, anything," Sherlock said with a rakish wink that was somewhat undermined when he began to cough. As he did so, Rose stood to pour a glass of water from a pitcher beside the bed. When he stopped, she handed him the drink.

"Thank you," he gasped.

"CCTV footage of train carriages," Rose prompted, once Sherlock had drunk the water and was breathing more easily.

"Train cars," he corrected, absently. "Do you recall the footage, Rose?"

"No, I didn't watch it. That was Molly. Would you prefer she were here?"

Sherlock waved a hand. "She's working now, or if not she's probably with her young man. No need to disturb her unless we need confirmation, and I think we can get it from elsewhere. Where's my phone?"

Rose glanced around, surprised to find that Sherlock's mobile- usually an extension of his arm- was nowhere in sight.

"Did you have it on you when you were kidnapped?" she asked.

"I don't recall being kidnapped, but I do recall contacting Mycroft shortly before my memories become uncertain, so I would posit yes."

Rose crossed to the door where Sherlock's long wool coat was hanging on a peg and began rifling the pockets, coming out with several random bits of paper and receipts, his toolkit, several rocks and bits of rubbish that might have been clues or might simply have been a thing for his fingers to worry while his mind worked, but no mobile phone.

"It's not here," Rose said with a frown after sifting the pockets a third time.

"Must have been lost in the fire," John said with a shrug. He reached into his pocket for his own mobile. "You can use mine if you need to make a call."

"Rose's would be better," Sherlock said, waving off John's offer.

Rose was still frowning at Sherlock's coat, but turned in surprise when he said her name. "My phone? Why?"

"Better video capacity than John's. I need Howard to send me the CCTV footage of that train."

Rose glanced at John in surprise but as he seemed to have no more answers than she, she dug into her pocket and turned her phone over to Sherlock without demur, though she glanced at Sherlock's coat again in concern.

~?~?~?~?~

"Seventeen minutes," Sherlock said, indicating the timestamp at the corner of the video that was playing on Rose's mobile screen. "Howard said that it takes ten."

"So you've lost seven minutes and a member of Parliament on a train that doesn't stop," Rose said, frowning at the video.

"There's something I'm missing," Sherlock growled, then started coughing again, prompting Rose to pour him more water.

"Seven minutes, a member of Parliament, and a train carriage," John said, when Sherlock had finally calmed.

"What?" Sherlock said, his voice rising to a squeek and starting another coughing fit.

John ignored this behaviour and simply plucked the phone from Sherlock's hand, rewinding the video and directing it toward Rose.

"One, two, three," he counted the cars as they came into the station, "four, five, six, seven." He glanced at her as they watched the man, (Lord Moran, according to Sherlock) board the last car alone. The video skipped to the next station.

"One, two, three, four, five, six…" Rose counted, then glanced at John. "We lost a train car."

"On a track that doesn't stop," John answered, frowning again at the video. "Are you quite sure it doesn't stop?"

"Not according to the maps," Sherlock gasped out to the pair who were mostly ignoring him.

"Map," Rose said, and took the phone from John's hand to navigate away from the video, bringing up a map of the city with the Underground lines highlighted. "The line we're looking at is here," she said, pointing to it. "There's Westminster, and there's Saint James, and the line runs right through the heart of the government district."

"But it skirts everything important," John said, leaning over her shoulder to see.

"Sherlock, did the underground ever have a different path?" Rose asked, her eyes still on the map, trying to see a pattern that wasn't there.

After a moment she glanced up to see Sherlock glaring at her, petulantly. She raised her eyebrows at him and he just narrowed his eyes further.

"Going to be allowed the join the discussion, am I?" he asked.

"You're just angry that John noticed the missing car before you did. Don't be a child."

John glanced up in surprise to find that Sherlock would not meet his eyes, and there was a slight flush of pink across his sharp cheekbones. He looked at Rose who gave him a small smile, then she turned her eyes back to Sherlock.

"Until 2001 there was a station under Parliament, but it was closed-"

"To prevent terror attacks," John said, all of it clearly coming together in his mind. "The train car is under Parliament in the abandoned station."

"How much explosive did Mycroft say was missing?" Rose asked. "Enough to bring down a large government building? Sherlock, what's happening at Parliament tonight?" Rose asked, quickly.

"I've no idea," Sherlock answered with a frown. "Mycroft would know."

"Is a holiday," John said with a frown. "Surely they wouldn't sit tonight."

Rose did not respond but fiddled on her phone before bringing it to her ear.

"It's Rose," she said after a moment. "Rose Tyler. Will anyone be at Parliament tonight? All night? But it's a holiday! Bugger. Yes, I think we've found it, and you won't like it. No, he can't move without trying to choke up a lung, it'll have to be me. Well you're just going to have to learn to trust me, aren't you? Just get those bastards out of the Parliament building without alerting anyone, damn it!"

She glanced at the device in her hand after a moment. "Your brother is a bit of a wanker, you know?" she asked, conversationally. "He hung up on me."

"What do you mean it'll have to be you?" Sherlock asked, completely ignoring this smear on his brother's character.

Rose glanced across the bed at John. "Doctor?" she said, gesturing that the explanation was his to give if he so desired.

"If you can get out of bed, cross the room, and put on your clothes without breaking into a coughing fit that puts you on the floor, you can fight crime today."

Sherlock glared at the pair of them, but as they continued to watch him expectantly, he gave a sigh and pushed himself out of bed. Once he was standing, he had to hold his breath for a long moment to ward off a coughing fit that nearly made his eyes water, but he did manage it, and began, slowly, to move for his clothes.

"What did Mycroft say?" John asked.

"There's an all-night vote on, and you'll love this bit, an anti-terrorism bill. On Guy Fawkes' night. Someone has a rather sick sense of humour."

"Sounds like Mycroft's sense of humour, actually," Sherlock said, then started coughing, unable to hold it back.

Rose crossed to the door and glanced down the hall at the nurse's station where Mary was talking to two other women. "Nurse Morstan?" she called. "A word?"


	13. Underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Happy Christmas, everybody!**

John followed Rose up the steps to the house where he had once lived, feeling an odd sense of loss as she unlocked the door and gestured him in, where it had always been the other way around.

Some things never changed, however, and nearly as soon as the door opened, the familiar bustle and chatter of his old landlady began.

"Rose? Is that you? You must tell me how Sherlock is doing, my dear, I've been worried about him for hours. It's just so awful that he should be in hospital during the holiday and-" She cut off suddenly, catching sight of John. "Ooooh!" she cried. "You've brought John." She flew forward and crushed him in a tight hug. "Oh it's so wonderful to see you again, and to see you two together! Just marvelous. You two have worked out your differences then, have you? Oh, I've just put the kettle on for tea. You'll join me, the pair of you, won't you?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Hudson," Rose said, patting her on the arm, "but we have to save London first. We're just here to pick up a few things. I should be back in time to watch the fireworks with you though. Sherlock will be stuck at the hospital for another night, I think."

Mrs. Hudson finally looked at her and her eyes widened in shock. "Rose! Your face! What did you do to yourself?"

Rose reached up unconsciously to the red burns across her face, displaying her bandaged hands, one of which Mrs. Hudson grabbed.

"Keeping Sherlock out of trouble, naturally," she said with a wry smile.

Mrs. Hudson tutted. "That man," she said, shaking her head. "You could do better, you know."

That made Rose grin. "You're probably right, Mrs. Hudson, but I wouldn't really care to. Too much work."

"You really think starting from scratch would be harder than getting Sherlock housetrained?" John asked quietly.

Rose laughed and met John's eyes and, for one shining moment, the two years between them, the lies, St. Bart's hospital, the stars, and the universe vanished and everything was as it had been before. They were best friends, teasing their mutual best friend about his complete incomprehensibility as a human being.

It did not last, of course. As soon as it arrived, the moment vanished leaving Rose and John unable to meet each other's eyes and feeling awkward.

"Best get on with it," Rose said after a moment. "I'll be back tonight if we don't die, Mrs. Hudson."

"I'll make cakes," she called as she returned to her own flat.

John couldn't help a chuckle. Mrs. Hudson would never change, and for that, if nothing else, he was grateful.

He followed Rose up the stairs into the flat that had once been his and Sherlock's.

It was largely unchanged, which both surprised and gratified him. There were small things- the bright blue throw across the back of the couch that spoke of a woman who got cold faster than the bloke she lived with. The kitchen was neater, but also showed signs of being used when he peeked in, and there was more fiction on the bookshelf. For all that, it was the same place and a wave of nostalgia passed through John.

Rose had no such distractions and was pawing through the drawer of the desk under the window while John looked around.

"Oi, catch," she said tossing a small leather wallet at him.

John turned and caught it instinctively, frowning at the object. "What's this?"

"Couldn't tell you, what's it say?" Rose was continuing to rummage in the drawer.

John opened it to find and identification. "Underground Inspectors?" he said, frowning. It even had his name on it.

"In case we get caught then, not a bad idea." Rose withdrew a silver-and-blue tube from the back of the drawer, tossed it into the air with a flip, caught it, and slid it into her pocket. "That's everything, let's go."

"You didn't know about this Underground thing until today, how did you get me an ID made in that time?" John asked as he followed her down the stairs and out the front door.

"I didn't make it. Didn't even know what it would say until you told me. It's psychic paper. Shows the reader whatever they need to see, in this case, that we're Underground inspectors."

"Psychic paper?"

Rose smiled. "It's alien."

John sighed. "Of course it is. And that blue thing?"

"Sonic screwdriver. It's a master key. Uses sonic waves to… well, do just about anything you can imagine."

"I suppose that's alien too."

"Yep," she said popping the 'p' as she'd always done.

"You're completely mad. You know that don't you?"

Rose didn't say anything to that, just grinned and kept walking.

~?~?~?~?~

It was amazingly easy, John discovered. A cab to the Parliament building, and when they reached the front, Rose nodded to him and he showed the little paper she'd given him.

The guard had glanced at their credentials. "Working on the holiday, eh?" he'd asked.

"Safety never sleeps," Rose said, then winked. "And it's a bit easier when the place isn't crawling with visitors who might want to follow us, you know?"

"Yeah, I understand that!" he said with a grin. "All right, you go on in then, let me know if you need anything from me. My name's Jason."

When they had reached the locked gates at the entrance to what had once been a working Underground station Rose had withdrawn her silver-and-blue tube, pointed the blue end at the lock and pressed a button that had caused the device to let out a piercing, buzzing pulse, and the lock had opened in an instant.

"What the hell is that thing?" John had asked.

"Told you, it's a bit like a master key, you know? Works on most mechanical and electronic locks. It's rubbish on wood though, and can't resonate concrete."

"Resonate concrete? Sounds like the name of a band."

"Just so long as they don't play dance music," she muttered, leading him down into the dark. She twisted something on her device, and it shone like a torch, illuminating the way into the abandoned station.

It was there, just as they'd predicted. The station and the car looked completely ordinary from the outside- with only emergency lights running, it looked like a station in the wee hours, though with less rubbish.

Rose went up to the door of the carriage and pressed the button to open it. Nothing happened. She twisted the end of her screwdriver again, pressed it to the door, and pressed the button. The door swished open.

"Must have shut off the electricity to the car," she said, glancing at him.

She took a deep breath, and stepped into the car, John following close behind her.

The car appeared perfectly ordinary as though it were waiting for the nonexistent people outside to board. No explosives, no mysterious packages, nothing to make the car look even the slightest bit suspicious.

"There's nothing here," John said, pushing past Rose into the car. He began to systematically search between the seats. "Nothing," he repeated as he reached the end of the car. "Could you and Sherlock have been wrong?"

Rose pursed her lips and frowned around at the car. Something was niggling at her. Something the Doctor had once said…

"A footprint doesn't look like a boot," she whispered, feeling suddenly as though a light had gone off in her head.

"What?"

Rose crossed to the wall of the train car where a well-disguised set of wires trailed down the wall. "The evidence of a thing- the footprint- doesn't always look just like the thing it's evidence of- the boot, right?"

John watched as she crouched on the floor, seeming to follow the wire as well as her own train of thought. "I suppose not?" he said, uncertain.

"So we thought that this looked like a subway bombing. Like the train car was supposed to carry the bomb, you know? But what… what if the car is the bomb instead?"

She was fiddling with her blue torch, drawing screws up from a panel on the floor.

"It actually is a screwdriver?" John asked, surprised.

"Said it was, didn't I? Very useful if you have a lot of shelves to put up."

She pulled the panel away and revealed something that made John's heart stop. It was a mess of wires and a countdown timer marching inexorably toward zero.

According to the clock, they had 5 minutes.

Rose looked around the car, calculating. "Something this big wired to explode… it'll take down most of the block. You need to go up and call Mycroft, get him to start an evacuation. Maybe… it's a holiday, so there shouldn't be too many people to get out."

"Rose-"

"I told Mycroft to clear Parliament, but I didn't think it would be so… And the security guard! You've got to get him out!"

"Rose, just defuse it!"

She looked up at him, eyes wide and face pale. "I don't know how!"

"You've got an alien screwdriver! Surely it's got a 'bomb defusal' setting!"

She stared at the device in her hands, then looked up at him helplessly. "It might, but I don't know what it is! I didn't build it and don't know everything it does. Unlock doors, that I can do. Unscrew bolts, hack simple databases, make toast, and hem skirts, those I can do. But I can't stop a bomb!  _If_ there's a setting for it, I'd have to try every single one and gods know what that might do!"

"But… you have alien technology! Shouldn't it be able to do just… anything?"

Rose gave a harsh, sobbing laugh. "It can do a lot of things, John, but not everything."

"Well… isn't there a switch or a wire to cut or… something?"

She bent her head to the device, running her fingers over it. "Too many wires. I don't want to cut the wrong one. It would… no telling what it would do." She stopped suddenly, stiffening. "There's a switch."

"Throw it!"

She looked up at him, eyes suddenly serious. "John, I don't know what it's going to do. It could set the bomb off immediately and that… I can't risk it. Not yet. Not until the last moment. You need to go above, get Jason and run as fast as you can. Call Mycroft and see if he can get traffic routed away from this block. Please."

He stood still for one long, breathless moment, staring at her. She was pale as marble and more serious than he had ever seen her.

"And you?"

"I'll wait as long as I can, then throw the switch."

"Rose…"

"I'm so sorry for the past two years, John. I didn't trust you and that was wrong and… I can't fix it now, but I want you to know that I'm sorry. Sherlock and Mary can explain all of it… believe them, please. They… they wouldn't lie to you."

"Rose…"

"Give everyone my love- Mary and Mickey and Martha and my parents and… and Sherlock. He knows, but tell him… tell him I wouldn't have missed it for the world, okay? And… John don't make the same mistake I made with you. Don't let him be alone, please. He… he's going to need you."

"Come with me, Rose, please."

She shook her head.

"There's a chance that I can fix it. I have to try. Go. Please."

John stood looking at her for the space of a heartbeat. She was lovely- a bright spot of pink and yellow in the drab interior of the train compartment. It was hard to believe that she might be dead in a few minutes.

He made a decision then. John crossed the compartment, grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her up. He took her shoulders and kissed her hard on the mouth.

"I forgive you, Rose."

She smiled, tears standing in her eyes. "I'm really glad. Thank you, John."

He nodded, and crossed back to the door. Just before he left he turned back to her. "I'll be seeing you, yeah?"

She said nothing as the door closed behind him.

~?~?~?~?~

"What's the time?"

Mary glanced at her watch by reflex, though she'd been counting seconds since the last time he'd asked. "Seven-oh-seven."

"They should be done by now, surely. It has to be done."

Mary said nothing, as she had done every time he'd had one of these outbursts. She knew, but he didn't, and she couldn't tell him.

"It's been hours. Where are they?"

Mary didn't answer, knowing he didn't need one.

"is it always going to be like this with us now?" Sherlock asked, angry. "You knowing and the rest of us running blind?"

"Not always, but sometimes."

Sherlock sighed. "I don't like not knowing."

Mary smiled. "I know. You're famous for it."

He didn't take the bait, just sat, glaring at the news reporter on the screen who perversely refused to say anything about anything important.

"She always says that time can be re-written," he said after a moment, so low that Mary wondered if she was meant to hear. "Even if you know… time can be re-written."

Not these times, Mary thought to herself, watching his sharp profile from the corner of her eye. Not one line.

~?~?~?~?~

John stood in the middle of the Westminster Bridge, watching Parliament. He had sent Jason on running, but he had stopped. He couldn't seem to force himself to go further.

He hoped that he was far enough away- she'd entrusted him with her last words and he could not let them die with her.

He'd lost count of the seconds, even as he counted the beats of his heart. Was it time? Had they won?

He did not know.

~?~?~?~?~

Rose sat on the floor of the train car with her eyes closed. She conjured faces in her mind as she counted down.

Jackie and Pete. The Pete she'd known so briefly in another world. Little Tony. Mickey, both as a kid and as an adult. Lovely Martha. Gwen and Tosh and Jake and Ianto and Owen. Greg and Sally and Mrs. Hudson and Mycroft. Donna Noble. The other Martha Jones. Sarah Jane.

And finally, three more faces.

First a raw-boned face with a nose and ears that were just a hair too big to fit, and a smile like the light of the galaxy, and eyes that hid more pain than a human could comprehend.

Second a prettier face with big chocolate eyes and a crooked grin and hair that never seemed to calm and a mouth that caressed her name like the finest wine.

And last, before she did her final duty, the last face. Pale skin and diamond-edge cheekbones. Blue-gold eyes and a mouth that was the face's only softness. Dark hair and more vulnerability than he would ever dare share and a smile that was hers alone.

She opened her eyes and pressed the switch.


End file.
